Talent to Deliver Commencement Address

U.S. Senator Jim Talent will deliver the Truman commencement address at 2 p.m., May 14, in Stokes Stadium. At the ceremonies, 926 students are expected to receive their undergraduate degrees and 70 students expected to receive their graduate degrees. A reception will follow at Red Barn Park.

Talent was elected to serve the state in the U.S. Senate in 2002.

While in the Senate, he is a member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee; the Senate Armed Services Committee; the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; and the Senate Aging Committee.

As a freshman senator, he holds numerous Senate leadership positions. Talent is the chairman of the Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee and the chairman of the Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Marketing, Inspection and Product Promotion. In addition, he is a member of President Bush’s Export Council and he was selected to serve as a deputy whip.

Previously, Talent served eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives (1993-2001) and eight years in the Missouri House (1985-1992).

Talent was born and raised in Des Peres, Mo. He graduated from Kirkwood High School in 1973 and attended Washington University in St. Louis, where he received the Arnold J. Lien Prize as the most outstanding undergraduate in political science. He graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Chicago Law School in 1981 and clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals from 1982 through 1983.

Talent and his wife, Brenda, have three children Michael, Kate and Chrissy. The family lives in Chesterfield, Mo.