Posted on May 1, 2019
Graduating students can expect to hear remarks from Arkansas Lt.Gov. Tim Griffin during the South Arkansas Community College Spring Commencement Ceremony.
The commencement is at 7 p.m. May 10 at the El Dorado Conference Center.
Griffin, who grew up in Magnolia, is a fifth-generation Arkansan. He is the youngest son of a minister and a teacher. He was elected as lieutenant governor in 2014 and re-elected for his second four-year term in 2018. He is currently chairman of the Republican Lieutenant Governors Association.
Griffin was the 24th U.S. representative of Arkansas’ Second Congressional District from 2011-15. He’s served as a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the House Committee on Ethics and the House Committee on the Judiciary.
During the Bush Administration in 2006-7, Griffin was U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, special assistant to the president and Bush’s deputy director of political affairs.
Prior to entering office, Griffin served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, Judge Advocate General’s Corps, for more than 22 years. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Mosul, Iraq, for which he was awarded the Combat Action Badge. Currently he is a senior legislative advisor to the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness at the Pentagon.
Last July, Griffin, in his capacity as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, graduated with a master’s degree in strategic studies as a distinguished graduate from the U.S. Army War College.
Griffin also is on the board of Our House shelter for the working homeless, and was on the boards of the Florence Crittenton Home for unwed mothers and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arkansas.
Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College and Tulane Law School. and attended graduate school at Oxford University in England. He and his wife Elizabeth live in Little Rock with their three children.
Michael Shine may be reached at 870-862-6611 or mshine@eldoradonews.com. Follow him on Twitter and like him on Facebook @MichaelAZShine for updates on Union County school news.