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Lecture-Concert Series to feature Mississippi Supreme Court justice on public service, Tuesday, Oct. 9

10/02/2012

JONESBORO – The next event in the 2012-13 Lecture-Concert Series at Arkansas State University will be a lecture by Randy Pierce, an associate justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court and a novelist, announced Dr. Tim Crist, chair of the Lecture-Concert Committee.

Justice Pierce will speak to students, faculty and staff on the importance of public service Tuesday, Oct. 9, at 7 p.m. in the Delta Center for Economic Development, which is immediately south of the College of Business.

The Greene County, Miss., native attended Jones County Junior College, transferred to the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), and received a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1987.  He became a certified public accountant before receiving his master’s degree in business administration from USM. Later, he attended and graduated from Ole Miss Law School where he served as president of the Law School Student Body.

Pierce served as a chancery court judge for the Sixteenth Chancery Court District and is a former state representative in the Mississippi Legislature, where he served as chairman of the House Education Committee and Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Education.

As associate justice, Pierce serves the Southern District, Place Two, which includes 27 South Mississippi counties. He co-chairs the Commission on Children’s Justice and serves on the Supreme Court Rules Committee on Civil Practice and Procedure and the Supreme Court Rules Committee on Criminal Practice and Procedure.

Not only is the justice a member of the Mississippi Bar, Mississippi Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, he is a member of the Jones County Junior College Foundation Board and Pine Burr Area Council for Boy Scouts of America.

He regularly speaks for continuing education seminars and serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. In his spare time, Pierce follows his passion for the arts by writing. His first novel, “Pain Unforgiven,” was released in May 2011.

The Lecture-Concert Series serves Arkansas State University and the surrounding communities by bringing notable guest speakers and performers of diverse backgrounds and wide appeal to the ASU campus, according to Dr. Crist.

Many of the Lecture-Concert Series events include additional campus activities as well as community outreach projects.  For more information, contact Dr. Crist, tcrist@astate.edu, (870) 972���2094.

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