Texas State to award Mittes honorary doctorates

SAN MARCOS—Texas State University-San Marcos will present Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte with honorary doctoral degrees Saturday, Dec. 17, making the Austin couple only the fourth and fifth individuals to be so honored by the university.

The Mittes will join former U.S. President and Texas State alumnus Lyndon Baines Johnson, former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson and Gilbert Grosvenor, former editor of National Geographic magazine and longtime president of the National Geographic Society, as recipients of honorary doctorates from Texas State.

The presentation will take place at 9:30 a.m. Dec. 17 in Strahan Coliseum on the Texas State campus. It will take place at one of the four fall commencement exercises taking place at Texas State that weekend.

Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte are among Texas State’s most generous benefactors and alumni. In 1997, during the university’s first capital campaign, the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Foundation made the largest total contribution to that campaign, establishing a scholarship fund to annually support 125 undergraduate and graduate students with awards of $5,000 per year, and providing additional funding to support five endowed chairs at the university. To date, more than 450 Texas State students have received a Mitte Scholarship.

In November, the university announced the creation of the Mitte Laureate scholarship program, a premier scholarship program that will rank among the most prestigious in the nation. The Mitte Laureate Scholars Program will begin in the fall of 2006 and will award four undergraduate academic scholarships annually worth as much as $25,000 a year or $100,000 over the course of an undergraduate student’s four-year degree program.