Seven hundred sixty-eight candidates for graduation, including 122 from the Findlay campus, will receive
their degrees during the 48th annual Owens Community College spring commencement on Friday. The
commencement will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Student Health and Activities Center on the college’s campus
in Perrysburg Township.
Owens’ commencement ceremony is free and open to the public. For family and friends unable to attend, the
ceremony will be streamed online and can be accessed at www.owens.edu/commencement.
Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judith French will serve as the keynote speaker. For the past two decades,
French has dedicated her career to public service. In that time, she has served the State of Ohio as a
lawyer for a state agency, an assistant attorney general, counsel to the governor, and, finally, as a
judge. In December 2012, Governor John Kasich appointed French to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court of
Ohio. She became the 155th justice of the Ohio Supreme Court on Jan. 1, 2013.
A native of Sebring, Ohio, a small town in Mahoning County, she received three degrees from The Ohio
State University: a B.A. in political science, an M.A. in history (with a concentration in military
history and strategic studies), and a J.D., with honors.
Lisa Long, an Early Childhood Education Technology major graduating with Summa Cum Laude honors, has been
selected as the Owens class representative and will address the graduates during the ceremony.
The 30-year-old Fostoria resident is the first person from her family to both attend college and earn a
college degree, Long’s journey to the Owens Community College Findlay campus started in southern
California, where she grew up in sunny San Diego. There, she met her future husband, Richard. They
returned to Ohio in 2009 to be near Richard’s family and married in 2010. They now have two boys, ages
10 and 3.
In 2009, Long made the decision to pursue higher education at Owens and enrolled in spring semester 2010.

"I was working three minimum wage jobs and was a full-time mom. I was spending savings just to pay
my own bills. I wasn’t making enough to live. I didn’t own a car," she said of the life-changing
moment when she decided to go to college. "I was riding on the bus with my son, singing the ABCs. I
knew I couldn’t go on working these jobs and not being able to pay to live. I had to go to college. I
figured out I wanted to be a teacher. The joy I had of being around my son, I wanted that all the time.

"If you have to be away from your children, you want to do something that you love," she said.