Lt. Col. Rygalski to deliver Veterans Day Commemoration keynote

Campus Community

Jayme Blaschke | November 4, 2019

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Sandra "Sam" Rygalski will deliver the keynote address during Texas State University's annual Veterans Day commemoration honoring Bobcat military veterans on Monday, November 11. 

Sponsored by the Student Foundation and the Dean of Students Office, the event begins at 10:30 a.m. in the Quad and includes remarks from Texas State President Denise M. Trauth, a performance by the Bobcat Marching Band and a military flyover.

A public reception will be held after the ceremony in the LBJ Student Center Ballroom.

A 1997 graduate of Texas State and the university's ROTC program, Rygalski became an engineer officer with the 44th Mechanized Engineer Battalion in South Korea in 1998. During her 20-year career, Rygalski commanded the 74th Engineer Company in Tikrit, Iraq, in 2003 where she supported both coalition forces and Iraqi civilians with bridge building and road clearance operations. In 2010, she deployed as part of Joint Task Force Haiti following that Caribbean nation's catastrophic earthquake the same year. In 2015, Rygalsi became the U.S. Army Section Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile, where she managed the Army and special operations bilateral programs between the U.S. and Chile. In addition to several certificates for professional military and civilian education and training, she holds a master of public administration degree from Webster University and a master of policy management from Georgetown University.  

Rygalski retired from the Army in 2016 and lives in San Antonio.

About Student Foundation

Student Foundation was founded in 1978 to encourage student leaders to be involved in campus, community and alumni activities; to promote the general welfare of the university; to assist the university president and administration; and to to build tradition, spirit and respectability for Texas State.