Is There a Doctor in the House?

The day we have dreamed of for the past four years finally came! Yesterday Lloyd graduated from vet school, and he is now offically Lloyd Vaughn Reitz, Jr., MS, DVM!Whew! You can call him Dr. Lloyd for short. :o) Anyway, it was a wonderful day. My parents and grandpa were able to come, and Lloyd's parents were able to come, too. We started our day by going to the CVM (College of Vet. Med.)awards ceremony 10:00am. One really neat thing the vet school does is hang congratulation signs for all of the graduating doctors. Here is Lloyd's sign: One of Lloyd's professors had pulled me aside and told me earlier in the week we needed to attend the ceremony--not all seniors get awards, and so often some of them will skip the awards ceremony altogether. He wouldn't say specifically, but I was under the impression that Lloyd was going to get some sort of award. He actually got TWO--the first was the SCAVMA (Student Chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association) award. He served as SCAVMA president his second year in vet school, and it was a HUGE undertaking--unlike anything I had ever seen. He worked SOOOOOOOOOOOO hard and at times had lots of opposition to his ideas, but he persevered and did an amazing job. The SCAVMA award is given to the person who has made the largest contribution to SCAVMA during their four years as a student. After Lloyd got his award, I put my camera down and sat back to enjoy the rest of the ceremony, until one of the Dr.s down front caught my eye and motioned for me to get my camera ready again. It took me a minute to figure out he was talking to me, but eventually I got it, just in time to hear the dean say "the recepient of this next award grew up on a dairy farm in PA...". Lloyd also recieved the most prestegious vet school award--the Dean's Pegasus Award, voted on by the student body as well as the faculty, for "excellence and outstanding performance in the College of Veterinary Medicine." Lloyd was in absolute shock, and I thought I might cry I was so proud! Here is Lloyd posing with his awards: Under his name sign: Here he is next to the Dean's Pegasus Award Plaque where his name will soon be engraved: After the awards ceremony we went to Abners for lunch (man are LL and I going to miss their fabulous chicken!) and then on to the graduation ceremony at the Hump at 2pm. My sweet friend Debbie saved us WONDERFUL seats, front and center, for the event. Thanks Debbie! :o) Lloyd was asked by his classmates to give the Innvocation, which was another huge honor for him, and he did a great job. The ceremony was wonderful; the graduation speaker Dr. Peddie was engaging and to the point, and as each student was hooded one of the doctors read about their future plans, who they would like to thank, and a little bit of information about each student. Lloyd said the Dr. who did this really did his research, going back to their intial vet school applications and picking out what he thought were interesting tidbits, as well as throwing in some of his own thoughts and comments. Several of the students looked pretty surprised at some of the stuff he came up with, but it was pretty entertaining. Believe it or not, he said something that really made ME blush... I won't tell you what, but if you watch the 1 min. video clip I am putting up of LL's hooding, you can probably figure it out. :o) Anyway, here are some pictures and the short video of LL's big day...my parents and Lloyd's parents took some other pictures I don't have access to yet, but these will give you the general idea. :o) Lloyd on stage with the Dean before giving his Innvocation: Lloyd getting ready to give the Innvocation: The graduation speaker Dr. Peddie, who has been a veterinarian for numerous Hollywood movies and for Disney:
Lloyd's Hooding:

After graduation, each student was given a Cowbell, complete with their name, degree, and the CVM logo, by the Alumni Association. When graduation was complete, the students were able to ring them (if you are not from MS or familiar with the SEC, suffice to say Cowbells are a big symbol of MSU):

Dr. and Mrs. Reitz:

After graduation, we went to a nice reception at the vet school. They had lots of yummy food and it was a great chance for Lloyd to catch up with his classmates and professors. Since you probably don't know any of them, I won't name them all here, but here they are:





And the good doctor in his offical regalia under his name:

And finally, next to the "Taking Care of the Big Dawg" sign: