April 19, 2000
University Park, Pa. — The Army, Naval and Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) will hold their annual joint services ROTC awards day ceremony at 4 p.m. on Friday, April 27, in Schwab Auditorium. This ceremony is held annually to honor cadets, midshipmen and officer candidates within the ROTC program who have excelled during the past year.

The ceremony is preceded by a joint services parade, which will start at 3:30 p.m. in front of the Wagner Building on campus. The parade route takes the three ROTC units to the reviewing area on Pollock Road directly in front of Schwab Auditorium.

The ROTC commissioning ceremony will be held Friday, May 11, at 3 p.m. in Schwab Auditorium. Colonel Steven M. Paladini, professor of aerospace studies, commander of Air Force ROTC Detachment 720, and ROTC tri-service coordinator, will preside over the ceremony. John Cahir, vice provost and dean for undergraduate education, will also speak.

Lieutenant General Donald Snyder, United States Air Force (retired), will be the guest speaker and will swear in approximately 60 students as new officers in the armed forces. General Snyder retired as vice commander, Headquarters Tactical Air Command, at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. The command comprised more than 101,000 active military and civilian personnel stationed at 300 separate locations in 20 different countries. He received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering from Penn State in 1957.

The student marshal is Air Force ROTC Cadet David J. Petrucci, an electrical engineering major from Dover, Delaware. The public is invited to attend.

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Contact:  Amy Neil, Department of Public Information, at (814) 865-7517 or aen4@psu.edu.