FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 05/11/2008

R.I. Chief Justice Urges BC Graduates To Return To Vision

Of Founding Fathers

BRIDGEWATER, Va. — As Bridgewater College's graduating seniors and their families celebrated on the campus Sunday, the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court the Hon. Frank J. Williams urged the 389 graduates to "guide this great land back to the vision of its Founders," in a speech centered on the legacy of Abraham Lincoln.

Williams, who was appointed chief justice by Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Almond in January 2001 after serving for five years as associate justice of the Superior Court, is also one of the nation's leading scholars on the life and times of Abraham Lincoln. In August 2000, he was appointed to the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission by the U.S. Congress. His latest book, with Harold Holzer and Edna Greene Medford, The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views: Social, Political, Iconographic, was published in 2006. Bridgewater College bestowed upon him an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

"Abraham Lincoln, a simple country boy with roots here in the Shenandoah, crafted a legacy that will live on forever," Williams said. "In large part, it is because of him that we are one country, under one flag, one government."

However, Williams said, one does not have to be a U.S. president in order to leave a legacy. One person, he told the graduating seniors, can make a difference. "The choices you make in every day life define how you will be remembered," he said.

Williams challenged Bridgewater's seniors:

"Ask yourself what will be your legacy? What difference will you make to society? What change will you author? It is your turn to take the helm and guide this great land back to the vision of its Founders. You are equipped to do just that."

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