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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon State University will present honorary doctorates to former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John H. Glenn, and innovative wheat researcher Sanjaya Rajaram, during its annual commencement ceremonies this Sunday, June 13, at Reser Stadium.

The university also will honor Hong Kong business leader Payson Cha with its Distinguished Service Award, though he will be unable to attend.

Glenn is also giving the university's first commencement address in several years.

John Herschel Glenn, Jr. has been called a pioneer, an American legend, and an international hero. In 1962, Glenn climbed into NASA's tiny Mercury capsule and was launched into space, where he circumnavigated the Earth three times. It was an epic journey, as systems malfunctioned and he had to manually pilot the spacecraft at more than 17,000 miles an hour, rocking back and forth while watching fiery bits of the capsule fly past him into space.

That successful, dramatic first American space flight shifted the Cold War dynamics and renewed national spirits. It also launched a new era in space exploration that continues today.

President John F. Kennedy would not allow John Glenn to go back into space, claiming he was too valuable as an American hero to risk in flight. He eventually left NASA and went into private industry, serving as an international executive in the soft drink industry.

The pull of national service drew him into politics, however, and in 1974, he was elected U.S. senator in the state of Ohio. For the next 24 years, Sen. Glenn served the senate, focusing on such issues as arms control, nuclear proliferation, government efficiency and campaign finance reform.

Glenn also yearned to return to space and, in 1998, he joined a crew of astronauts who had not yet been born during the history Mercury flight, becoming at 77, the oldest person to ever fly in space. He and his crewmates went on a nine-day mission aboard the Discovery, supporting a variety of research payloads - including a project by an Oregon State University graduate student.

While aboard the Discovery, Sen. Glenn orbited the Earth 134 times, traveling 3.6 million miles. The three-orbit Mercury mission had taken just less than five hours and covered about 85,000 miles.

Glenn also was a highly decorated war veteran, having flown 59 combat missions during World War II, and another 90 missions during the Korean War. Rajaram is the retired director of the Wheat Research Division of the International Center for Maize and Wheat Research whose work in genetics and as a global ambassador has made wheat accessible to the world's poor.

Rajaram took over as the leading wheat breeder for the center in 1973, replacing Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug, who triggered the Green Revolution. The wheat production trends begun by Borlaug continued under the leadership of Rajaram, who is known as the world's greatest wheat breeder.

. He has contributed to the release of more than 450 varieties of wheat in 51 countries - and those varieties are now grown on approximately 143 million acres. After he took over the center's wheat breeding program, world production increased by more than 200 million tons during the next quarter century, and center-produced varieties generated as much as $13 billion in the United States alone.

But it is developing countries that have benefited most greatly from the work of Rajaram. He helped create a global network facilitating the free exchange of invaluable genetic resources among thousands of wheat researchers worldwide, and he has broken ideological and parochial barriers that might have separated the work of individual scientists.

Rajaram has worked in close collaboration with wheat breeders at OSU, particularly through an association with the late Warren Kronstad, a noted wheat breeder and geneticist. Together, they developed the International Winter-Spring Wheat Improvement Program that had a worldwide impact on food production through expanding the genetic biodiversity of wheat.

From 1973 to 1999, more than 5,100 germplasm lines were developed and distributed to more than 100 researchers in 44 countries, and OSU was established as the lead U.S. program for the development, promotion and support of international wheat germplasm exchange.

Cha is an international entrepreneur, real estate developer and business manager - and an exceptional example of a successful family business leader.

He began his career as a young man when his father, Cha Chi-Ming, sent him to Nigeria to manage the family textile business. After his successful stint there, he came to OSU where he earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration in 1968, and was awarded a Sloan Fellowship to Stanford University. He graduated from Stanford with an MBA in 1973.

In the late 1970s, Cha's father asked him to return home to lead an effort by Hong Kong Resort International to transform a plot of 70 million square feet of featureless scrubland on Lantau Island into a worthwhile development. Within a couple of years, the first homes in the Discovery Bay residential complex went onto the market and sold out within hours.

Today, the Discovery Bay complex boasts a population of 13,000 people and stands as the Cha Group's flagship project in Hong Kong. That success propelled Hong Kong Resort International into a leadership role in the development and management of townhouses and community projects. Cha extended the family business into other sectors, including finance, investment, textiles, electronics and biotechnology.

An honorary trustee of the OSU Foundation, Cha has supported the Austin Family Business Program, the Weatherford Hall renovation, the International Business student exchange, and an exchange program between the College of Business and City University of Hong Kong.