SEMO TO HONOR LIMBAUGH

Southeast Missouri State University will issue its first honorary doctoral degree posthumously to Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. during commencement exercises May 11 at the Show Me Center.

Dr. Bill Atchley, Southeast president, will present the degree to the Limbaugh family.

Limbaugh, a longtime Cape Girardeau lawyer, died April 8 at the age of 104.

"I met with Mr. Limbaugh in March and we had a wonderful time visiting," Atchley said. "At that time he was the institution's oldest living alumnus."

During that conversation, Atchley informed Limbaugh that the Board of Regents wanted to present him with an honorary degree.

Atchley said Limbaugh replied that he wasn't worthy of such a degree.

The regents decided Tuesday to award the honorary degree.

Atchley said it is fitting that the university honor Limbaugh. Limbaugh was born in 1891, just 18 years after the founding of Southeast.

Limbaugh grew up on a Sedgewickville farm. He attended a one-room elementary school and later Millersville High School.

He enrolled in 1907 at Southeast Missouri Normal School, now the university. He studied at Southeast until 1912, with the exception of a year as a teacher at the one-room Lone Grove School in Bollinger County.

While at Southeast he edited the school newspaper, The Capaha Arrow, in its first year of publication, 1911-1912.

In 1912, he enrolled at the University of Missouri-Columbia. In 1914, he entered law school there.

He was admitted to the Missouri Bar July 3, 1916, and returned to Cape Girardeau to open his law practice.

Throughout his life Limbaugh served the public interest -- as a teacher, a Boy Scout leader, a lay leader and Sunday school teacher at his church, a member of the Missouri House of Representatives, political party chairman, president and trustee of the State Historical Society of Missouri, and a member of the Missouri Commission on Human Rights.

He served as legal counsel to Southeast Missouri State, Southeast Missouri Hospital and the city of Cape Girardeau.

Over the years he chaired committees of the American Bar Association and served as president of the Missouri Bar.

When he was in his 90s he received special recognition as the nation's oldest practicing lawyer.

But as noted in a citation approved by the regents Tuesday, Limbaugh "wanted to be known simply as an honest lawyer who believed in justice."

The regents approved an honorary degree policy in December. It is designed to recognize intellectual and human values that are consistent with the aims of higher education and the highest ideals of the recipients' chosen fields.