Calling graduation a "culmination and a beginning," Bishop Keith B. McMullin provided four simple signposts by which graduates of LDS Business College could chart their future:
- Pursue Truth.- Manage wisely.
- Live right.
- Leave a legacy.
Speaking June 11, Bishop McMullin, second counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, delivered the main address during the college's 112th commencement exercises in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve and the Church's Commissioner of Education conducted and presided at the exercises. Also present was college Pres. Stephen K. Woodhouse. Accompanying their husbands were Carolyn McMullin and Sytske Woodhouse.
During the exercises, Julia L. Hogan, director of marketing for the ZCMI Center Mall in downtown Salt Lake City and a 1994 LDS Business College graduate, received the 1998 Distinguished Alumnus Award. Sister Hogan was the first woman in Utah to receive national accreditation as a certified marketing director and was recently named a senior certified marketing director. She has volunteered for the Utah Heritage Foundation, the Utah Arts Festival and the Utah Society of Historical Buildings. She also served for two years on the LDS Business College Alumni Association board of directors and serves as a guest lecturer at the college.
During his address, Bishop McMullin expounded on the four signposts he suggested:
- Pursue Truth. "Much remains for you to learn. Make learning your lifelong pursuit. The Lord is hastening His work and increasing the reservoir of knowledge required to do so. What is known today will be changed or added upon tomorrow. Do not fear wholesome change - embrace it!"
- Manage wisely. Bishop McMullin urged graduates to beware of deceptive contradictions, such as:
- "Charge cards that promise a care-free life.
- "Indulgences that portray a long and happy life.
- "Possessions that represent the ideal life.
- "Indebtedness that depicts a secure life.
"Rash judgments, unbridled appetites, reckless management of personal affairs can transform your otherwise bright future into a series of dismal defeats."
- Live right. "I commend to you this thought: `Live right by embracing virtue.' Virtues are more than values, much more. Virtues mean not only excellence, but moral excellence. Virtuous men and women not only do good, they are goodness."
- Leave a legacy. "Society suffers from what some have called `dumbing down.' `Good enough to get by' is all too often the high water mark of performance. As a graduate of LDS Business College, you are duty-bound to make a difference in this world, to reach beyond the average, to elevate and edify those around you as well as the communities in which you reside."
In his brief remarks, Elder Eyring told graduates: "I'm grateful for this opportunity to represent President [Gordon B.] Hinckley, [who is chairman of the board of trustees for LDS Business College].
"If he were here, he would want me to say to you, I am sure, that this is the Church of Jesus Christ and He is its head, and that when you receive, then, recognition from an institution of the Church Educational System, we do it knowing that the Savior, Himself, approves of what we do and that He is aware of you."
Continuing, Elder Eyring said: "You are going to make a difference. You can make a difference for good or you can make a difference of less good, and it will depend completely on some apparently simple choices that you will make."
During the commencement exercises, nearly 300 graduates earned 376 degrees - two-year applied science degrees and/or one-year certificates. A poignant moment during the commencement was the awarding of a posthumous honor to Mark Van Horn, who died recently from cancer, presented to his wife, Alisa.
In addition, Heather Young, who was killed several days ago in a car accident in Wyoming, received a posthumous medical assistant certificate, which was accepted by her grandmother, Dorothy Young, a 1930 alumnus of the college.