Past Lectures
Russel Honore
Ret. Lieutenant General, United States Army
Lieutenant General Honore is a native of Lakeland, Louisiana. He was commissioned
a Second Lieutenant of Infantry and awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Vocational
Agriculture upon graduation from Southern University and A&M College in 1971. He holds
a Master of Arts in Human Resources from Troy State University as well as an Honorary
Doctorate in Public Administration from Southern University and A&M College.
Prior to his command of Joint Task Force Katrina during which he led the Department
of Defense’s response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana,
General Honore served in a variety of command and staff positions which focused on
defense support to civil authorities and homeland defense. As Vice Director for Operations,
J-3, the Joint Staff, Washington D.C., and as the Commander, Standing Joint Force
Headquarters-Homeland Security, United Stated Northern Command, General Honore’s focus
was Defense Support to civil authorities and Homeland Defense.
Some of his assignments have included: Commanding General, First Army; Commanding
General, SJFHQ-HLS, U.S. Northern Command; Commanding General, 2d Infantry Division,
Korea; Deputy Commanding General/ Assistant Commandant, United States Army Infantry
Center and School, Fort Benning, Georgia; and Assistant Division Commander, Maneuver/Support,
1st Calvary Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
General Honore’s awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service
Medal (one Oak Leaf Cluster), the Distinguished Service Medal (one Oak Leaf Cluster),
the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit (four Oak Leaf Clusters),
the Bronze Star Medal, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service
Medal (three Oak Leaf Clusters), the Army Commendation Medal (three Oak Leaf Clusters),
and the Army Achievement Medal.
General Honore retired on February 29, 2008, following thirty-seven years of active
service with the United States Army. He continues to speak and consult nationally
on building a culture of preparedness. His book, Survival: How a Culture of Preparedness
Can Save You and Your Family from Disasters is available in bookstores everywhere.
Robert “Hoot” Gibson
Captain Robert “Hoot” Gibson, United States Navy, graduated with a degree in Aeronautical
Engineering from California Polytechnic State University. He entered the United States
Navy and served as a fighter pilot in F-4 “Phantom” and F-14 “Tomcat” Aircraft and
flew combat missions in Southeast Asia, making more than 300 carrier landings. After
attending the Navy Fighter Weapons School “Topgun”, he graduated first in his class
at the U. S. Navy Test Pilot School and served as a flight test pilot prior to being
selected as an Astronaut in 1978 in the first Space Shuttle Astronaut selection.
In 18 years as an Astronaut, he flew 5 space flights, 4 of them as the Mission Commander,
aboard the Space Shuttles “Challenger”, Columbia”, “Atlantis”, and “Endeavour,” His
final Space Flight was the first mission to rendezvous and dock with the Russian Space
Station “Mir.” In his career with NASA, he held the positions of Deputy Chief of NASA
Aircraft Operations, as the Chief of the Astronaut Office, and as the Deputy Director
of Flight Crew Operations.
After leaving NASA and retiring from the U. S. Navy in 1996, Captain Gibson flew for
10 years as an airline pilot with Southwest Airlines. In a flying career covering
over 45 years, he has accumulated more than 13,000 hours of flight time in more than
100 types of military and civilian aircraft. He has been an Air Race Pilot continuously
since 1998 in the Reno National Championship Air Races.
Gibson has received numerous honors, awards, and decorations including the DOD Distinguished
Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal
(3 awards), the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat Distinguishing Device, the Humanitarian
Service Medal, and the Vietnam Service Medal.
He has established six World Records for aircraft; “Altitude in Horizontal Flight”,
Class C-1A in 1991; “Time to Climb to 9000 meters”, Class C-1A in 1994; “100 Kilometer
Closed Course Speed Record”, Class C-1A in 2004; “Speed over a Recognized Course”
Seattle to Las Vegas, Jet Class C-1H in 2004; “Speed over a Recognized Course” Las
Vegas to Wichita, Jet Class C-1H in 2004; and “Speed over a Recognized Course” Chester,
England to Geneva, Switzerland, Jet Class C-1H in 2009.
He has also established 3 World Records for Spaceflight: “Assembled Mass of Spacecraft
in Earth Orbit”, Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Russian Space Station Mir, 1995; “Distance
Traveled in Linked Flight”, Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Russian Space Station Mir,
1995; and “Altitude in Linked Flight”, Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Russian Space
Station Mir, 1995.
Captain Gibson was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2003.
Hodding Carter, III
Although Hodding Carter, III grew up in Greenville, Mississippi, his family’s roots
are deep in the Hammond area. In the early 1930s, Carter’s parents, Hodding Carter,
II and Betty Werlein Carter, operated the Hammond Daily Courier, a publication noted
for its outspoken opposition to Louisiana Governor Huey P. Long. A decade earlier,
Carter’s grandfather, Will Carter, was instrumental in founding Southeastern as Hammond
Junior College.
After graduating from Princeton University, Carter, III returned to his family’s newspaper
the Delta Democrat-Times of Greenville where for 17 years he was a prize-winning reporter,
editor and associate publisher. In 1961, he won the Society of Professional Journalists’
national award for editorial writing. He was a Harvard University Nieman Fellow from
1965-66.
Active in racial and political reform, he served in the Johnson and Carter campaigns
before joining the Carter administration as Assistant Secretary of State for Public
Affairs.Nationally, Hodding Carter is perhaps best remembered as the spokesman for
the U.S. State Department during the Iran hostage crisis in the late 1970s.
After leaving the State Department in 1980, Carter held a variety of media positions,
including opinion editorial columnist for the Wall Street Journal.
Carter has also served as a correspondent for the PBS Frontline documentary series,
is a four-time Emmy winner, and a recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award for broadcast
journalism.
Beginning in 1994 he served as the Knight Professor of Public Affairs Journalism at
the University of Maryland, College Park. He resigned the post in 1998 to become the
president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Knight Foundation is
an American non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting journalism.
Carter has lectured at universities all over the country and continues to do freelance
work for the television and print media. Since 2006, he has served as University Professor
of Leadership and Public Policy at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
John B. Boles
William P. Hobby Professor of History, Rice University
On 19 October 2006, the campus community had the opportunity to attend Boles’ lecture
on the provocative topic “Climate, Geography, and Southern History: The Influence
of Non-Human factors.”
Boles is the William Pettus Hobby Professor of History at Rice University and Editor
of the Journal of Southern History.
