State Representative Diane Franklin to receive Distinguished Alumni Award during OTC commencement

Ozarks Technical Community College will present its fourth annual Distinguished Alumni Award to Missouri state Rep. Diane Franklin. The award will be presented during the college’s commencement ceremony, to be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 16, at JQH Arena on the Missouri State University campus. Franklin, a Republican, represents parts of Camden and Laclede counties (District 155) in the Missouri House of Representatives.

Elected to her first two-year term in November of 2010, Franklin is a third-generation small business owner, presently in health care, and a fifth-generation farmer. She served on the Camdenton R-III School Board from 1993 to 1999, and as board representative to the Lake Career and Technical Center, Camdenton’s Parents as Teachers Program, and the C.C. and Dorothy Blair Excellence in Education Scholarship Trust Fund. She is a member of the Lake Area, Camdenton, and Lebanon Chambers of Commerce, and has served as both president and vice president of the Lake Area Master Gardeners.

A Camdenton resident, Representative Franklin is a 1974 graduate of Camdenton R-III schools and of Ozarks Technical Community College, and has completed course work at Southwest Baptist University and Truman State University. She is married to Chris Franklin and has two sons and two granddaughters.

Previous recipients of the Ozarks Technical Community College Distinguished Alumni Award have included Rick’s Automotive owner Rick Hughlett, entrepreneur and restaurateur Paul Sundy, and former director of the Springfield-Greene County Office of Emergency Management Ryan Nicholls.

This year’s commencement ceremony will feature an address from U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, who has served in the U.S. Senate since 2010. Prior to his time in the Senate, Blunt held a position in the U.S. House of Representatives for seven terms, and has also been Missouri’s Secretary of State, a county official, president of Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, and a history teacher.