TALK SHOW HOST WILL SPEAK AT GRADUATION

Nationally syndicated radio talk-show personality Rush Limbaugh III will deliver the commencement speech at Cape Girardeau Central High School's June 5 graduation.

The ceremony will begin at 8 p.m. at the Show Me Center. The school will graduate 284 seniors.

Limbaugh, an alumnus of Central High School, was the commencement speaker in 1989.

Principal Dan Milligan said Limbaugh was a "hit" three years ago. This year's seniors requested Limbaugh as their graduation speaker, he said.

"We have a graduation committee that meets every year in January made up of students and staff from school and parents," Milligan explained. "We plan the commencement procedures.

"Normally we solicit from the students names of speakers they would like to see us contact. It then becomes my job to contact those people and see if we can schedule them to come.

"We had Rush Limbaugh here three years ago," Milligan said. "When his name was suggested I told students he may not be interested in coming back so soon. But once we contacted him, he said he was pleased to come."

He said commencement speakers are allowed to choose their own topics. Milligan said he doesn't know what Limbaugh will discuss.

"We only ask that they stay within a 20- to 25-minute timeframe. We don't want a marathon."

When Limbaugh spoke at commencement before, tickets were distributed. Milligan said no tickets will be distributed this year.

"The last time he was here, if the weather was bad, we were coming back here to the gymnasium, and we were afraid we wouldn't have enough space. But we don't anticipate we will have any problems with commencement being at the Show Me Center," he said.

The baccalaureate will be held May 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the CHS new gym.