SpringfieldNewsSun.com

SPRINGFIELD — U.S. Congressman David Hobson will deliver the keynote speech at Wittenberg University's 163rd Commencement exercise, on May 10.

The Republican legislator from Springfield is serving his ninth term in the U.S. House of Represeentatives and will retire in December. His 25-year experience as an influential policy maker made him a timely choice for this year's commencement speaker, said senior class president Mark Preston.

"The class of 2008 selected Congressman Hobson mainly because since this is such a period of change going through our country right now, he is very much a key figure in our home district who could bring a lot of issues home," Preston said.

Hobson, live a Springfield resident, received an honorary doctorate of law degree from Wittenberg in 1992 and has been instrumental to bringing significant funding to the university.

In 2005, he secured $1 million for Wittenberg's computational science research partnership with the Ohio Supercomputer Center and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Two years earlier, he helped secure another $1 million for the Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center construction project. The center's three-story atrium was named in Hobson's honor.

This term, Hobson has earned key committee posts on the House Appropriations Committee. He is the ranking member of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee and serves as a senior member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He served as chairman of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee, as a member of the Veterans Affairs/Housing Subcommittee and as a member of the Budget Committee. Hobson served in the Ohio Senate from 1982-1990. He received his B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University and his J.D. from The Ohio State University College of Law.

Contact this reporter at 937-328-0347 or at kmori@coxohio.com.