Sonic Executive to Speak at Massey Lectureship
by SOUTHEASTERN PUBLIC INFORMATION
April 7, 2008
DURANT, Okla. J. Clifford Hudson, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Corporation, will offer remarks at the 11th Massey Family Endowed Lectureship in Business and Public Policy on Friday, April 25. The lecture will begin at 11 a.m. in the Southeastern Oklahoma State University Ballroom.
The lectureship was established in 1994 by a gift from the John Massey family, which was matched by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Endowment Fund Program.
John Massey, a 1984 Distinguished Alumnus of Southeastern, is currently serving his second term as a member of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.
A 1960 graduate of Southeastern, Massey was elected State Representative that same year and served two terms. In 1964, he was elected State Senator and also served two terms in that capacity.
In 2005, the Southeastern School of Business was named the John Massey School of Business in recognition of Regent Massey¹s support of higher education and Southeastern.
At Southeastern, Regent Massey has established eight endowed chairs and four professorships.
Regent Massey is Chairman of the Board of First United Bank; Chairman of the Board for Durant Enterprises, Inc.; Chairman of the Small Business Development Center; and is on the Board of Directors of the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce and the Oklahoma Foundation of Excellence.
He was named to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2002.
Clifford Hudson has spent the last 21 years of his career at Sonic Corp., an Oklahoma City-based, publicly-held company that owns, operates and franchises Sonic Drive-In restaurants. Today, he is chairman of the board, chief executive officer and president of this public company with 3,000 franchised and company-operated drive-in restaurants. Hudson was named chief executive officer (CEO) and president of Sonic Corp. in April 1995 and became chairman of the board in January 2000. Previously, he served the company in a variety of capacities, including general counsel, chief financial officer and chief operating officer.
Hudson has been affiliated with many non-profit and community activities. He served as chairman of the board of directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), a presidential appointment, from 1994--2001. He now serves as Chairman of the Oklahoma City School Board, a position created in 2000 as part of a $530 million turnaround of a 40,000-student Oklahoma City Public School system.
Hudson graduated from the University of Oklahoma, which he attended with Phi Beta Kappa and President's Leadership scholarships. In 1998, Hudson was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences, where he serves as a member of the Board of Visitors.
In 2001, he received the University's Regents Award from its Board of Regents. Hudson graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a member of the legal honor society Phi Delta Phi. In 1979, he served as an editor of the International Law Journal, a publication of the Association of Student International Law Societies. He is also a member of the board of visitors of Georgetown University Law Center.
Hudson and his wife, Leslie, an epidemiologist, live in Oklahoma City with their two sons.
