A wave of gowns and mortarboards has ushered in a new life chapter for new alumni. This morning, Wake Forest University saluted its Class of 2012, as 1,727 undergraduates and graduates paraded before family and friends to mark their achievement.
The commencement cermony's featured speaker was Charlie Ergen, chairman of DISH Network and EchoStar Communications. In the autumn of 1957, Ergen first glimpsed a satellite when his father took him out to a field near their Oak Ridge, Tennessee, home to watch Sputnik, the Russian pioneer satellite, pass overhead.
This morning, Wake Forest President Nathan O. Hatch introduced Ergen.