Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Office of University Relations
                                           SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
                                           publicinfo@selu.edu
                                           www.selu.edu/NewsEvents
    Date: 4/16/99
      Contact:                           Christina Chapple  18

Editors: Photo accompanies release 
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSMAN MAURICE TEMPELSMAN 
TO PRESENT SLU'S MORRISON LECTURE
     HAMMOND -- International financier and diamond merchant Maurice Tempelsman will
present Southeastern Louisiana University's James H. Morrison Lecture on Politics and
Government at the university's Ralph R. Pottle Music Building Auditorium April 28.
     The annual lecture, sponsored by Southeastern's Center for Regional Studies and College
of Arts and Sciences, honors James H. "Jimmy" Morrison, the Hammond native who represented
Louisiana's Sixth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1943-1967.
Past guest speakers, who have included U.S. Sen. John Breaux, state Sens. John Hainkel and
Mary Landrieu and state Rep. Henry "Tank" Powell, explore critical and topical events
pertaining
to public policy. 
     Tempelsman's lecture, which is free to the public, will begin at 10:30 a.m.
     "I am delighted that this world renowned businessman will be visiting our campus,"
Southeastern President Sally Clausen said. "Mr. Tempelsman met Congressman Morrison during
his tenure in Washington and was eager to accept our invitation to present the Morrison Lecture."
     Morrison said he met Tempelsman on an airplane while in route to New Orleans
after the Tempelsmans had left their native Belgium in the wake of Hitler's rise to power. "As a
Congressman, I was in a position to help them because they were selling their industrial
diamonds, which were used in World War II. We became very close friends," Morrison said.
     "I have not seen Mr. Tempelsman since I left Congress, so I'm very happy that he is
coming to visit and to take part in the lecture," Morrison said.
     Tempelsman is senior partner in the firm of Leon Tempelsman & Son, a company active
in mining, investments and business development and minerals trading in Europe, Russia, Africa, 
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MORRISON LECTURE   Add One
Latin America, Canada and the Far East. He also chairs the board of directors of Lazare Kaplan
International, Inc., one of the nation's foremost diamond houses. He serves on the International
Advisory Council of the American Stock Exchange and is a director of the Business Council for
International Understanding.
     A member of the board of trustees and immediate past chairman of the Africa-America
Institute, Tempelsman serves on the boards of directors of the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs, and the Center for National Policy. He is a member of the corporation of
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and chairman of the International Advisory Council of
the Harvard AIDS Institute. He also  is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a
visitor to the Department of Classical Art of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass.
     Tempelsman has served on several Presidential Commissions, including the President's
Commission for the Observance of Human Rights, the Citizen's Advisory Board of Youth
Opportunities and the National Highway Safety Advisory Committee. Most recently, he was
appointed by President Clinton as a director and was elected treasurer of the Southern Africa
Enterprise Development Fund. The Secretary of Commerce appointed him a member of the U.S.-
South Africa Business Development Committee.
     Born in Belgium in 1929, Mr. Tempelsman came to the United States as a child. He
attended New York public schools and New York University.
     The Center for Regional Studies preserves and promotes the history and the cultures of
the Florida Parishes, southeastern Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi through scholarly
research, lectures, exhibits and publishing.
     For additional information about the Morrison Lecture, call Center for Regional Studies
Director Samuel Hyde or his staff at 504-549-2151.
                            - SLU -
     This press release is available on the World Wide Web:
      www.selu.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsp99.htm