Monday, April 16th, 2012

West Virginia Wesleyan College will welcome its Chair of the Board of Trustees Lloyd G. Jackson II, a member of the West Virginia Board of Education and former state senator, as the College’s 122nd Commencement’s keynote speaker. Commencement is at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 5 in the Rockefeller Physical Education Building.

Jackson has a strong record of supporting education and dedicating his time to public service. In 2005, he joined Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees and was named chair in 2006. He will step down as chair in April and remain on the board for one more year. As the board’s chair, he oversaw the completion of five major construction projects on Wesleyan’s campus among many other accomplishments.

Educated in West Virginia’s public schools, Jackson pursued higher education at West Virginia University, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in political science in 1974.  He graduated Order of the Coif from the West Virginia University College of Law in 1977. As a law student, Jackson served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review.

Jackson served as a state senator for 12 years and as Lincoln County’s prosecuting attorney for six years. During his time in the state Senate, he held the position of chair of the Senate Education Committee and was a lead sponsor of the PROMISE Scholarship and comprehensive early childhood legislation.

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin appointed Jackson to the West Virginia Board of Education in 2011 for a term ending in 2020.

He operates his family’s natural gas production business, an industry in which his family has owned for more than 100 years.

In addition, Jackson currently serves as a trustee of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, as chairman of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Business Policy Task Force, as a director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, as president of Energize West Virginia, as a director of the Discover the Real West Virginia Foundation, Vision Shared West Virginia, and as vice chairman of the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences.

Jackson and his wife Trina reside in Hamlin, WV and have two sons, Lloyd III (L.G.) and Ryan.