{"id":53260,"date":"2025-05-13T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/?p=53260"},"modified":"2025-05-19T08:35:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T13:35:20","slug":"future-attorney-to-deliver-tarleton-states-friday-morning-commencement-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/future-attorney-to-deliver-tarleton-states-friday-morning-commencement-address\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Attorney To Deliver Tarleton State\u2019s Friday Morning Commencement Address"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

STEPHENVILLE, Texas \u2014 After accepting her bachelor\u2019s degree in criminal justice from Tarleton State University at Friday\u2019s 9 a.m. commencement ceremony, Kaitlyn Rash plans to attend law school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Commencement
Kaitlyn Rash<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

First, though, she\u2019s going to share her story as the event\u2019s student speaker. Rash, the salutatorian of her graduating class at Rockdale High School, has not made up her mind as to a specialty in the law, but she has plenty of options to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA few areas of law call to me,\u201d she said. \u201cI like the idea of class actions \u2014 the idea of family law. I originally considered criminal law to become a prosecutor. I still feel that pull, but I\u2019m keeping my options open.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She began her collegiate career at Blinn College, where she studied criminal justice on a track to transfer either to Tarleton State or Sam Houston State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both schools are about the same distance from her home and both offered the same basic curriculum. Tarleton State had two things that made the decision easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had a brother who was a senior here. He had an apartment and was looking for a roommate,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I took the option of living with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I love the color purple. At the age of 10 I painted my whole bedroom purple. I understand what it means to bleed purple.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A regular on the President\u2019s List while at Tarleton State, Rash has completed her applications to law schools and is awaiting acceptance letters to make her choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until then, she is considering life away from the Stephenville campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m torn,\u201d she said. \u201cI know I\u2019m supposed to be excited for change, and I am, but I\u2019ve grown to love my little place here in Stephenville. I love the school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love the ducks, the purple pancakes, coffee with the president. There are a lot of great ways to meet people. There\u2019s probably not an elevator on campus that I\u2019ve not made a friend on the two floors going up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019ll also miss the academic enthusiasm from instructors and other students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard several faculty members talk about Tarleton being a research school,\u201d she said. \u201cI love that because it means that not only are the students hungry for their education, but the faculty members are also always looking to learn more as well. That makes for great conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is a little tight-lipped about her commencement speech, though it is centered around classic literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like to give too much away,\u201d Rash said. \u201cThere is a nod to Ray Bradbury\u2019s \u2018Fahrenheit 451\u2019 and there are themes of the dangers of conformity and fitting in. If we\u2019re not all the same, then we\u2019re all different in our own ways. I want to stress the differences in everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STEPHENVILLE, Texas \u2014 After accepting her bachelor\u2019s degree in criminal justice from Tarleton State University at Friday\u2019s 9 a.m. commencement ceremony, Kaitlyn Rash plans to attend law school. First, though, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":53278,"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":423,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423,425],"tags":[440,442],"class_list":["post-53260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics-research","category-campus-community","tag-college-of-liberal-fine-arts","tag-community-events"],"acf":{"image":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"priddle","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/priddle-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2025\/05\/Commencement-Speaker_RashForWeb-300x200.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Academics & Research<\/a>","Campus & Community<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Academics & Research<\/span>","Campus & Community<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["College of Liberal & Fine Arts<\/a>","Community Events<\/a>"],"unlinked":["College of Liberal & Fine Arts<\/span>","Community Events<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 11 months ago","modified":"Updated 11 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on May 13, 2025","modified":"Updated on May 19, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on May 13, 2025 8:00 am","modified":"Updated on May 19, 2025 8:35 am"},"featured_img_caption":"Kaitlyn Rash","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53260","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\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53260"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53311,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53260\/revisions\/53311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}