Commencement speakers: Dean and Distinguished Alumni Award recipient

Dr. Margaret Crouse will be the speaker at the graduate ceremony in Memorial Hall at 8 a.m. Crouse is retiring after 36 years on the faculty and in the administration at CSC

John Jacox will be the speaker at undergraduate commencement in the Chicoine Center at 10 a.m. He has a distinguished career of more than 30 years in the aerospace industry.

Both events will be broadcast at csc.edu/live.

 

Dr. Margaret Crouse

Commencement Speaker

When Crouse arrived at CSC as a home economics instructor in the fall of 1979, she only planned to stay nine months. Although the Kansas native had planned to move on to a research university, she found she loved teaching and wanted to stay at CSC.

She completed her doctorate in home economics from Oklahoma State University during a sabbatical in 1984.

In the late 1980s, she was involved with securing a multimillion dollar Higher Education Act Grant for CSC. Funds from the grant accomplished four major goals: Establishment of CSC offices in Scottsbluff and North Platte, starting the Interactive Television System to deliver courses to outlying areas, bringing enhancement to computer services on campus and providing the first adult student services offered by the college.

Between 1984 and 1990, Crouse and her colleagues in applied sciences wrote numerous small, state flow-through grants for Vocational Education projects, including school-to-work job shadowing programs, in the Panhandle.

This work resulted in Crouse receiving the 1993 Special Service to Nebraska Home Economics Teachers award and the 1994 Outstanding Vocational Educator award from the Nebraska Family and Consumer Science Association.

Additionally, Crouse was honored with the 2001 Family and Consumer Science Leadership award from the Nebraska Family and Consumer Science Association.

After 14 years in the classroom, Crouse became the Dean of Business and Applied Science. In this position from 1993 to 2002, she led teams responsible for planning the growth and development of the CSC Range Management Program, now considered a leader in the region.

She is a member of the Nebraska Council of Teacher Education, the Nebraska Association for Colleges of Teacher Education and served on the Professional Practice Commission of Nebraska from 1993-1998, by governor’s appointment.

John Jacox

Commencement Speaker

A Scottsbluff, Nebraska, native and CSC graduate, Jacox became an aeronautical engineer and spent over three decades involved in the design, testing, manufacturing and management of some of the most technologically-advanced aerospace weapons systems in the world.

He graduated from CSC in 1971 with honors in mathematics and physics. He was honored with the college’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2014. His mother and sister are also CSC graduates.

His wife, the former Karyn Foster of Alliance, is also a CSC alumna. The couple has lived in Indianapolis the past 25 years.

As a senior at CSC, Jacox prepared a conceptual design of a propeller-driven, single-engine aircraft with the capacity to set distance and speed records. A college classmate recalls that everyone, including the professor, was “blown away” by Jacox’s project and the effort he put into it.

He went on to earn a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University in 1974.

When he was 3 years old, he received a model airplane from neighbors in Scottsbluff. To him, the tissue-covered model was marvelous because it could fly. His mother would wind the rubber motor, launch the model and he would chase it.

The joy ended one day when the model flew into a fence. He was heartbroken, but the magic of flight had put its hooks into him. He became obsessed with aircraft and aviation.

When he was about 10, he began riding his bicycle to the Scottsbluff airport to watch planes take off and land. Before long, he was talking to the mechanics and pilots about their jobs and their airplanes.

These experiences were the launching pad for an impressive and challenging career.

—CSC College Relations