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July 10, 2024Blessed Stanley Rother is among five who will be honored during homecoming festivities Oct. 4-5 at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
Rother, Class of 1965, earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Southeastern while serving at his first parish, Saint William Catholic Church in Durant.
In 1968, at his own request, Rother was assigned to the diocese's mission to the Tz'utujil people of Santiago Atitlán in the rural highlands of southwest Guatemala. He served there until he was assassinated in 1981.
He was beatified in 2017, becoming the first American-born priest and martyr to receive this honor from the Catholic Church. The Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine opened in Oklahoma City in 2023.
Along with Rother, the school will also recognize Terry Barker (1980), a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army and long-time pilot for American Airlines; Gary Sherrer (1973), a combat medic in the Vietnam War who also served four terms in the Oklahoma House of Representatives; Todd Hughes (1985, ’87), senior director of IT Government Services for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma; and Roland Fanning (2005), a former baseball player at Southeastern and now the head coach at Austin Peay in Clarksville, Tennessee.
These five Distinguished Alumni will be honored at a banquet Oct. 4. More details will be announced closer to the event. For questions regarding the event, contact executive director of alumni relations and career services Stephanie Davison at (580) 745-2267 or [email protected].
