Nicholls State University has announced that Louisiana Supreme Court Justice John Weimer will be the keynote speaker at the 110th Commencement Ceremony, according to this news release from the school.

Born and raised in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice John Weimer returns to Nicholls State University to be the keynote speaker at the 110^th Commencement Ceremony after having previously attended the school as a student and later having taught as a professor. Chief Justice Weimer was both an academic honors graduate and Hall of Fame graduate of Nicholls, where he also twice served as student body President.

Prior to his time on the bench, Chief Justice Weimer was also a full-time faculty member at Nicholls, teaching law and ethics classes for 16 years. During his time at the University, he received the Presidential Award for Teaching Excellence, was given the honor of being named to Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, and served as director of the Free Enterprise Week Program at Nicholls.

Chief Justice Weimer left the classroom in 1993 when he was appointed by the Louisiana Supreme Court as Judge pro tempore for Division D of the 17th Judicial District Court. In 1995, he was then elected to serve as Judge for Division A of the 17th Judicial District Court, and he was re-elected in 1996 without opposition.

In 1998, Justice Weimer was elected to serve on Louisiana’s First Circuit Court of Appeals, and later Judge Weimer was then honored with the Outstanding Judicial Award from Victims and Citizens Against Crime as well as with the Outstanding Jurist Award from Crimefighters, Inc; both of these statewide organizations are dedicated to victims of crime. Later, in 2006, Justice Weimer was named as one of the leading judges in America by a national publication,The Law Dragon.

Keynote speaker, Justice Weimer, was initially elected to the Louisiana Supreme Court in 2001 when he was elected to serve as Associate Justice for District 6, which is comprised of the following parishes: Assumption, Iberia Lafourche, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Martin, St. Mary, Terrebonne, and a portion of the west bank of Jefferson, which includes Grand Isle. Twice, first in 2002 and again in 2012, Justice Weimer was re-elected to a 10-year term without opposition before becoming the 26th Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court on January 1, 2021.

Nicholls’ 110^th Commencement Ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 14, consisting of four total ceremonies. Each ceremony will be held at David R. Stopher Gymnasium beginning first with the ceremony for The College of Science and Technology at 9 a.m, followed by The College of Liberal Arts at noon. At 3 p.m. The College of Education and Behavioral Sciences and the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute will hold its ceremony, and The College of Business Administration and the College of Nursing will be the last ceremonies of the day, commencing at 6 p.m.

It will be during the Commencement Ceremony for the College of Liberal Arts when the University will award an Associate’s Degree of General Studies posthumously to the family of Kennedi Foret, an honors student studying marine biology who was the victim of a fatal car crash on December 19, 2021.

Additionally, during the ceremony, the University is set to award an Honorary Doctorate of Science to Dr. John Heaton (BS ‘81), the President and Chief Medical Officer of LCMC Health. Dr. Heaton is being honored for being one of the most respectful and well-respected clinicians in the state of Louisiana and for being a passionate advocate for patient safety and quality above all else.

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