Shenandoah University to Graduate 262 at Commencement on August 15
Valley Health System President Mark Merrill will deliver the commencement address. SU Alumnus Carl Tanner will receive an honorary doctor of music degree, and Virginia Delegate Beverly Sherwood will receive the President’s Medal for Exemplary Service.
Alumnus Carl Tanner, an internationally acclaimed tenor, will receive an honorary doctor of music degree on August 15
Shenandoah University will graduate approximately 262 students during a ceremony in the Smith Library Plaza on Saturday, August 15, at 10 a.m. Valley Health System President Mark Merrill will deliver the commencement address. Shenandoah University Alumnus Carl Tanner will receive an honorary doctor of music degree, and Virginia Delegate Beverly Sherwood will receive the President’s Medal for Exemplary Service.
As president of Valley Health System, Merrill oversees the operation of a regional health-care system that serves a population of 450,000 in northwest Virginia and eastern West Virginia and includes five hospitals as well as urgent-care sites, quick-care facilities, a surgi-center, a medical transport service, medical equipment stores and a retail pharmacy. Before accepting the position with Valley Health System, he worked for 19 years as executive vice president of Texas Health Resources and president of Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, simultaneously. Merrill earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degree at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and began his career in health-care administration at the American Hospital Association.
Tanner is an internationally acclaimed tenor who received his undergraduate training at Shenandoah. After college, Tanner had a variety of jobs including truck driver and bounty hunter, until being “discovered”in 1990 when the general director of the Santa Fe Opera heard him sing in a New York City restaurant. He has performed lead roles in major productions in opera houses around the world. Under the baton of Zubin Mehta, Tanner took Florence and Napoli by storm as Don José in “Carmen.”Most recently, he kicked off the 2008-09 season with a new production of “Il Trovatore”in Dresden.
Sherwood was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1993. She currently serves as chairman of the Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee; the Appropriations Committee; and the Appropriations Sub-Committee on Public Safety. She also serves on the Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resource Committee and Rules. In addition to serving on many standing committees, Sherwood belongs to the Joint Republican Caucus, the Shenandoah Valley Caucus and the House Republican Caucus as well as the Healthy Families Legislative Advisory Board, the Virginia Federation of Republican Women and the Winchester-Frederick-Clarke Republican Women’s Club.
For information about seating, parking and other questions about graduation at Shenandoah University, visit www.su.edu/graduation.