Students eligible to participate in Sunday's commencement exercises include degree candidates for December as well as graduate students whose degrees have been awarded on a monthly basis since September. Due to an increasing number of winter graduates, IU Bloomington re-instituted a formal December commencement in 1997, which was its first since 1944.

Conferral of degrees will be led by IU President Myles Brand, assisted by Kenneth Gros Louis, vice president for academic affairs and chancellor of the Bloomington campus, and by the deans of the schools.

Rev. Richard F. Zawistoski, campus minister of Lutheran Campus Ministry, will deliver the invocation and benediction. The ceremony inducting the graduates into alumni status will be conducted by R.J. Rosi, president of IU Student Foundation; John D. Walda, president of the IU trustees; and Sandra J. Obremskey, past president of the Alumni Association. Leading a portion of the musical accompaniment will be Allison R. Coop, a 1999 candidate for a bachelor of music degree.

An innovative leader in the manufacture of medical equipment, Cook also is a leader in his community and has been from an early age. He was born in Mattoon, Ill., raised in Canton, Ill., and received his bachelor of science degree from Northwestern University. He lettered in football, basketball and track in high school and was a member of Beta Beta Beta, the biology honorary at Northwestern University.

These first of many awards and honors would lead to an array of distinctions, from the Bloomington Hall of Fame to two honorary doctorates -- engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and law at IU Bloomington -- to a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce.

His path to success has been lined with a commitment to innovation and a dedication to community. In 1963, William and Gayle Cook founded Cook Inc. in the spare bedroom of their Bloomington apartment. Cook applied his knowledge of biology with his U.S. Army training in operating-room technology and his experience in a Chicago medical company to create innovative, life-saving devices.

Cook subsidiaries produce such necessities as coronary catheters, needles, urological supplies, and tissue-engineered biomaterials. Today, the corporation for which he is founder and president, Cook Group Inc., is one of the largest private medical device manufacturers with facilities in the United States, Australia, Denmark, Ireland and Canada.

Praised for his ingenuity and his ability to provide practical solutions to medical problems, Cook also is celebrated for his commitment to southern Indiana, Bloomington and IU. In partnership with his wife, Gayle, Cook has been instrumental in the restoration of many treasured historic buildings, including the West Baden Springs Hotel, once called "the Eighth Wonder of the World."

As founder of the Monroe County YMCA and generous supporter of local organizations such as Better Living for Special People and The Star of Indiana Brass and Percussion Corps, Cook has increased opportunities for the personal and physical development of people of all ages and abilities.

IU also has benefitted from Cook's generosity. He instituted the Cook Graduate Scholarship Fund to provide financial assistance to graduate students in the School of Music; the Martha Lea and Bill Armstrong Fund in Teacher Education; and the Walter J. Daly Chair Fund for the School of Medicine. In addition to scholarships and endowments, he has given substantial research funding to the College of Arts and Sciences and the schools of business, education, medicine and music. Dedicated in 1995, the William and Gayle Cook Music Library is ranked among the top academic music libraries in the United States.