EUREKA –Tickets are available to the public for two events featuring retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on April 9 at Eureka College.

O’Connor will be designated as an Honorary Ronald Reagan Fellow at a ceremony at 2 p.m. at Reagan Physical Education Center on Reagan Drive. She will speak about leadership and community service. Tickets are free, and reservations are required. 

O’Connor also will speak at a dinner at 6 p.m. in the Cerf Center. Admission is $250, and reservations are required. 

Reservations for the ceremony and the dinner may be made by calling (309) 467-6317 or by e-mailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The Ronald W. Reagan Leadership Program at Eureka College selects honorary fellows who exemplify the program’s “Lead and Serve” motto by making significant contributions in leadership and service. Past recipients are former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, former commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Paul X. Kelley and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. 

“Justice O’Connor served with distinction throughout her career,” said Eureka College President J. David Arnold. “Her judicial service embodies the ideals of the Reagan Leadership Program.”

O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. She was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and served as an associate justice until her retirement in 2006.

O’Connor received a bachelor’s degree in economics and a bachelor of laws degree, both from Stanford University. She was deputy county attorney of San Mateo County, California, from 1952 to 1953 and a civilian attorney for Quartermaster Market Center, Frankfurt, Germany, from 1954 to 1957. From 1958 to 1960, she practiced law in Maryvale, Ariz., and was assistant attorney general of Arizona from 1965 to 1969. She was appointed to the Arizona State Senate in 1969 and was re-elected to two two-year terms. In 1975, O’Connor was elected judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, Phoenix, and served until 1979, when she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals.