{"id":25354,"date":"2021-08-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-commencement-speaker-fell-in-love-with-texas\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T15:51:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:51:24","slug":"tarleton-commencement-speaker-fell-in-love-with-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-commencement-speaker-fell-in-love-with-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarleton Commencement Speaker Fell in Love with Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"O''Grady<\/a><\/p>\n

O\u201dGrady press<\/p>\n

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/p>\n

Thursday, August 5, 2021<\/p>\n

STEPHENVILLE, Texas \u2014 Amme O\u2019Grady came of age in the Pacific Northwest and later spent a decade on the East Coast. Then she moved to Texas, and the travel bags went in the closet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I have been all over the place,\u201d says the Brock resident, who will deliver the commencement address at 7 p.m. exercises Friday, Aug. 6, at Tarleton State University\u2019s Memorial Stadium. \u201cI grew up in Seattle and lived in Maryland for about 10 years. Then an opportunity to move to Texas came about, and we took advantage of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with Texas as soon as we got off the plane. I wondered why I had not lived here my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working in the legal department at Lockheed Martin Corp., Amme has career aspirations that require further education. She earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in communications at Western Washington University, but a desire to work in development, community relations, event management or philanthropy pushed her to a master\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

She will receive her master\u2019s degree in communication studies after her speech.<\/p>\n

She chose Tarleton because she was intrigued by what the program had to offer and impressed with a \u201cgenuine staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really liked the program. I was able to continue working full time, take care of my family and still complete the program in 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digging into the details, she discovered things about Tarleton that cemented her decision. She heard such positive feedback from the professors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a hometown feel,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s something special about Tarleton and being on campus that reached out, grabbed my heart and said, \u2018This is the place.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

And, as she had with Texas, she fell in love with Tarleton.<\/p>\n

Amme\u2019s commencement address draws on her own experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some things in my life that are difficult to talk about,\u201d she said. \u201cMy father is no longer with us, and I still struggle with that, but I was able to incorporate our relationship into the speech, and that just fills my heart and soul.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think about the relationships I made during my time here at Tarleton, and I feel quite fortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some aspects of studying for a master\u2019s she will not miss, but she absolutely will miss connecting with her peers.<\/p>\n

At least she won\u2019t have to miss visiting the campus. Not yet, anyway.<\/p>\n

She will still frequent Tarleton to see her daughter, a bio-med major expecting to graduate in May 2022<\/p>\n

\u201cChloe has another year,\u201d Amme said, \u201cand I come all the time to see her. So I\u2019ll be around for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amme O’Grady came of age in the Pacific Northwest and later spent a decade on the East Coast. Then she moved to Texas, and the travel bags went in the closet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423,425],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics-research","category-campus-community"],"acf":{"image":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"keegan","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/keegan-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-72-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Academics & Research<\/a>","Campus & Community<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Academics & Research<\/span>","Campus & Community<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 7 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on August 5, 2021","modified":"Updated on September 22, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on August 5, 2021 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on September 22, 2025 3:51 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"Woman smiling outdoors with a blurred green background.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53777,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25354\/revisions\/53777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}