WNMU
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Dudley Sykes, retired University of Mississippi at Oxford professor and Western New Mexico University alumnus, will be the keynote speaker for the WNMU 2003 spring commencement ceremony scheduled at 6 p.m. on Friday, May 9, at the WNMU Brancheau Amphitheater. Some 265 degrees will be conferred during Friday's ceremony. Dr. Sykes was born in Laurel, Miss. He graduated from Roswell High School in 1951. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in English and commerce from New Mexico Western College, now known as WNMU.

After a tour in the Marines, he obtained his first teaching job at Hurley Junior High School. In 1959, Sykes earned a master’s degree in education from WNMU (NMWC) and was a counselor at Cobre High School in Bayard. He earned his Ed.D. in educational psychology in 1966 and was a faculty member at the University of Mississippi at Oxford from 1971 to 1995. Sykes has a long and outstanding career as a counselor educator. During his tenure at the University of Mississippi at Oxford, he taught undergraduate and graduate educational psychology. He served as the Mississippi Counseling Association's president from 1985-86, sat on the university faculty senate, and did extensive community consultant work. Also, in 1991, he co-authored a textbook entitled," Behaviors of Preschoolers and Their Teachers," based largely on his experiences mentoring Headstart teachers.

He was inducted into the WNMU Education Hall of Fame in 2001. He is an author and recently had his novel “The Second Spring,” published. He and his wife, Mary Ann, reside in Vancouver, Wash. They have four children and eight grandchildren.