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Alumni Association Adds 700

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Click Photo to Enlarge A day for music.

Click Photo to Enlarge The big day is finally here.

Click Photo to Enlarge Tim Redmond (84) prepares to hand out Bibles to new grads.

Click Photo to Enlarge Glad to be grads.

Click Photo to Enlarge This is serious stuff!

Click Photo to Enlarge 'We are gathered here today...'

Click Photo to Enlarge Forget jetlag. We have our D.Min.s!

Click Photo to Enlarge No turning back...

Click Photo to Enlarge I really made it!

The ORU Alumni Association grew by 700 members on May 5, as happy graduates from ORU's six schools marched across the stage to receive their diplomas.

According to the Registrar's Office, ORU granted 540 bachelor's degrees, 140 master's degrees, and 20 doctoral degrees.

During the 1 p.m. ceremony in Mabee Center, graduates and their families and friends listened in on a telephone call from ORU's chancellor, Oral Roberts, who called from California. It was the first time that Roberts had missed an ORU Commencement; he is recovering from a broken pelvis.

In his call, ORU's founder asked graduates to remember three things: the whole-man concept, God's charge to take the gospel to every creature in the world, and seed-faith. He closed by telling the 700 that he would "always love them."

Pat Robertson, founder of Regent University in Virginia Beach and a longtime Christian broadcaster who established the Christian Broadcasting Network, gave the keynote address. Quoting from Micah 6:8, he asked, What does God expect of you? The answer: "To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

President Richard Roberts presented honorary doctorates to the Rev. Margaret Court, Australian tennis star of the 1960s and '70s who formed her own ministry in 1991 and established Victory Christian Centre in Australia in 1995. She received a doctor of laws degree.

Mother Grace Tucker, a woman who has been feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless in the Tulsa area for more than 50 years, received a doctor of divinity. She told the president, "You can call me Doctor Mother Tucker."

Robertson, who spoke at Commencement in 1983 and was given an honorary doctor of divinity degree, received this year's Distinguished Service Award.

Among the 700 graduates were 12 students from ORU's affiliate site, Livets Ord University, in Uppsala, Sweden, and 5 from another affiliate site, Peniel College of Higher Education, in Essex, England. Most of the students were not able to be present, but the presidents of both institutions, Ulf Ekman and Michael Reid, were on the platform.

Welcome to the Alumni Association, Class of 2001!