EMERSON KEYNOTES SOUTHEAST COMMENCEMENT

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, will keynote Southeast Missouri State University's spring commencement May 17.

Commencement exercises, during which 845 undergraduates and 286 graduate students will receive diplomas, is scheduled for 2 p.m. in the Show Me Center.

Emerson was elected to the position last November.

She successfully ran as a Republican in a special election to fill the unexpired term of her late husband, Congressman Bill Emerson in the 104th Congress. She also successfully ran as an independent in the general election for a full term in the 105th Congress.

After bring sworn in as one of only two independents in the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 7, she officially became a member of the Republican majority later that same day.

Missouri's Eighth District comprises the entire Southern Missouri region extending from the Mississippi River to the east, to a northern border stretching from just south of St. Louis to just east of Springfield on the west, to the Missouri-Arkansas border running along the south. The district's 26 counties consume nearly 18,000 square miles, which is three times the size of the State of Delaware, twice the size of the State of Maryland and 4,000 square miles larger than the entire country of Switzerland.

According to the Missouri Secretary of State's Office, Emerson becomes the first woman ever sent to Congress from the region, and she's the first person elected to federal office as an independent in the State of Missouri in 122 years.