PULLMAN, Wash.- Washington State University’s Foley Institute will award former Secretary of Defense General James Mattis with the Thomas S. Foley Award for Distinguished Public Service during an April ceremony at Gonzaga University.
The honor, which is named after the only Speaker of the US House of Representatives from Spokane, will be given to another eastern Washington native. Mattis is from Pullman and appeared at WSU as a speaker in 2022.
Mattis served as the Trump Administration’s first Secretary of Defense, and was one of several old-guard establishment Republicans who resigned from the president’s cabinet and were replaced by policy influencers from the hard-right wing of the party.
Foley represented Washington’s 5th district as a Democrat for thirty years before being unseated by Republican George Nethercutt in 1994. Foley died in 2013.
Gonzaga’s Foley Center is named after the former Speaker of the House, but the ceremony honoring Mattis will occur in the Hemmingson Center, a space which is often used for events on the Spokane campus.
The Foley award is not the first time WSU has honored Mattis. In 2021, WSU Tri-Cities dedicated the General James Mattis Leadership Library. The general was in attendance at the event.
The award ceremony will take place on April 9 and will be a fundraiser for the Foley Institute.
