FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Contact: Dave Wellman, Director of Communications, (304) 696-7153
 

Marshall University announces honorary degree recipients

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Arthur and Joan Meyer Weisberg, founders of State Electric Supply Co., Arthur’s Enterprises and Service Wire Co., and West Virginia Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin will receive honorary doctoral degrees from Marshall University during commencement Saturday, May 10.

The university’s 171^st commencement begins at 9 a.m. at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena. Tomblin will deliver the keynote address.

The Weisbergs will each receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree while Tomblin will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Honorary degrees have been conferred by Marshall University to highly distinguished recipients since 1928 when Dwight Whitney Morrow and Guy Fielding Yost each received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees.

Here is a look at each 2008 honorary degree recipient:

Arthur Weisberg

Weisberg is a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1950 graduate of City College of New York with a degree in electrical engineering. He founded State Electric Supply Co., a retail/wholesale distributor of electrical and electronic supplies with showrooms and warehouse facilities, as a one-man operation in 1952 by selling light bulbs, extension cords and fuses out of the back of his truck to grocery and hardware stores.

Today, under the corporate umbrella of Arthur’s Enterprises, State Electric has 41 branches in five states – West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and North Carolina. In 1968, Weisberg and his wife, Joan, established a specialty wire fabrication company called Service Wire Co. that now has customers throughout the world.

Joan Meyer Weisberg

Joan Weisberg co-owns State Electric Co. and Service Wire Co. with her husband, Art. In addition, she is owner and manager of Twelve-O-Six Virginia Inc., a real estate holding company in Huntington. She was born in Charleston, W.Va., and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from The Ohio State University.

Together, the Weisbergs established the Arthur and Joan Meyer Weisberg Distinguished Professorship, an endowed chair in Marshall University’s College of Science. They also established the Arthur and Joan Weisberg Division of Engineering and Computer Science in Marshall’s College of Information Technology and Engineering. In 2007, they received the John Deaver Drinko Distinguished Service Award at Marshall. Both are members of the Marshall University Business Hall of Fame.

Earl Ray Tomblin

Tomblin is the longest-serving Senate president in West Virginia history. A native of Chapmanville in Logan County, he has been president of the Senate since Jan. 11, 1995, having since been reelected six times. He began his legislative career in the House of Delegates in 1974, the same year he graduated from West Virginia University. He earned his Master of Business Administration from Marshall in 1975.

Tomblin has held just about every major Senate post, including Chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee. During his legislative service, he has sponsored a number of important legislative initiatives, including the School Building Authority, the state’s Rainy Day Fund, Tort Reform, Ethics Reform, Coal Mine Safety Legislation and more recently, the “Bucks for Brains” legislation to create the West Virginia Research Trust Fund.

Tomblin began his career as a public school teacher, while also developing private business interests. He is married to the former Joanne Jaeger, a distinguished Marshall alumna who serves as president of Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College.

###