CSU-Pueblo to celebrate more than 650 graduates on Saturday

Friends and relatives of Colorado State University-Pueblo graduates will be able to celebrate across the miles or across town this Saturday as the University will broadcast the 2018 Commencement ceremony live online. The event will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 5 at the Colorado State Fairgrounds Southwest Motors Events Center. Graduates are asked to report at 8:45 a.m. to the Palace of Agriculture to line up for the ceremony. All graduates walking on Saturday must pick up a graduate packet and/or caps and gowns between 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. on Friday, May 4 in the CSU-Pueblo Bookstore.

More than 650 graduates have indicated they will walk in this year's Commencement ceremony. Award-winning 2005 mass communications graduate Megan Matousek, who has been involved in numerous Star Wars films and Disney franchise efforts, will share her insights with graduates as the Commencement Speaker. Matousek currently serves as Associate VFX Producer for Industrial Light & Magic in the San Francisco Bay Area. She’s produced more than 100 digital projects for the Walt Disney Company and oversees post-production support teams of VFX artists, support staff, and supervisors for the Star Wars franchise. She has received credits for her work on Coraline, Star Wars The Force Awakens, Star Wars Rogue One, and Star Wars The Last Jedi. Currently, she is working on the upcoming release of SOLO, A Star Wars Story, which is set to release May 25, 2018.

Pueblo native Thais Magallon will receive the first diploma as 2018 recipient of the Threlkeld Prize for Excellence. Named for the late Budge Threlkeld, a former administrator and professor, the award is presented to a graduating senior who demonstrates excellence in academic and co-curricular activities as well as in service to the University and to the community. Magallon will pursue a Master of Social Work degree after she graduates summa cum laude (4.0 GPA) with dual degrees in social work and Spanish. Thais works as a bilingual victim advocate for Pueblo Child Advocacy Center providing for Pueblo’s most innocent victims. She has received academic honors and acknowledgements from the Spanish department and College of Humanities and Social Sciences, been inducted into the Alpha Lambda Delta National Academic Honor Society as well as the Sigma Delta Pi Hispanic National Honor Society, where she serves as co-president. Magallon also was a Kane Family Foundation Scholar during her career at CSU-Pueblo.

The second diploma will go to Pueblo West native Teagan Boda as winner of the Diane Blackwell President’s Leadership Award. This award is presented to a student who excelled as a student leader with a distinguished record of extraordinary leadership, service, spirit, advocacy and involvement within the University. Boda is graduating magna cum laude with a double degree in history and political science.

The CSU-Pueblo Alumni Association will host a reception following the ceremony in a tent to the south of the Events Center.