Former Oklahoma State University President and GOP state Senator Jim Halligan died Tuesday in Stillwater at the age of 86.
Halligan was president at OSU from 1994 by way of 2002 and later served within the state senate from 2008 by way of 2016.
Current OSU President Kayse Shrum stated she mourned his loss in a statement.
“He faced and overcame many challenges as president of our beloved university, reversing a trend of declining enrollment and resetting our future on a more positive track,” she wrote. “Jim and his wife, Ann, led with compassion and strength.”
Halligan led the college at the time of a 2001 airplane crash that claimed the lives of 10 Cowboy males’s basketball group staffers, gamers and a flight crew.
He is credited with saying “we will remember” in regards to the males who died instantly following the crash. Those phrases are etched on their campus memorial in Stillwater.
“There are many issues in life which I do not perceive, however I put this at the highest of the listing,” Halligan told The Oklahoman in regards to the airplane crash in 2006. “I simply should belief in God that he has a plan that is a lot larger than any that I can think about and that he felt it was applicable for this occasion to happen. That’s the one approach that I can rationally embrace it and in some way, in some way, attempt to settle for it, which I believe won’t ever be true.”
As college president, Halligan oversaw $200 million in development tasks on campus for analysis and scholar services and a $260 million renovation undertaking of Gallagher-Iba Arena.
His accomplishments reached past OSU’s campus, together with throughout his eight years within the state senate.
One of his greatest legislative feats was because the architect of the 2015 law that bars tobacco use at colleges and on school campuses.
“Jim was both a mentor and trusted friend, and my thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Ann, their children, and grandchildren as we mourn his passing and give thanks for a well-lived life of service,” his successor Sen. Tom Dugger, R-Stillwater, stated in a statement about his passing.
Halligan lived in Stillwater after retiring from Oklahoma State along with his spouse Ann, who survives him.
“We just like OSU,” he stated in a college oral history recorded in 2021. “We really do. It’s been my pleasure to be affiliated with it in various ways.”
put up credit score to Source link