U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry headlines this weekend’s list of speakers at Union College as the college prepares for graduation celebrations.

Fortenberry will deliver the keynote address as the physician’s assistant program in Union’s Division of Health Sciences begins a new tradition: graduate hooding.

The hooding ceremony will take place Friday in the Ridnour Room of The Apothecary in Lincoln’s Haymarket. Refreshments will be served at 4:30 p.m. and the formal program will last from 5:15 p.m. to 7 p.m.

During the ceremony, established members of the health sciences profession will give the 22 students hoods to be worn as part of their regalia.

The hooding celebrates the program’s ninth year of existence.

Remaining activities during Union’s graduation weekend include:

* Consecration service, 8 p.m. today. Union College President David Smith will speak. Immediately following the service there will be a reception in Heartland Hall in the College View Seventh-day Adventist Church for all graduates, their families and Union employees.

* Sabbath School, 10:40 a.m. Saturday. The class of 2008 will lead Sabbath School in the church’s main sanctuary.

* Baccalaureate, noon Saturday. Ron Carlson, president of the Kansas-Nebraska Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, will speak.

* Senior Nurses’ Dedication, 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

* Commencement, 10 a.m. Sunday. Samuel Turner Sr., president and CEO of Shawnee Mission Medical Center and a member of the Union College Board of Trustees, will deliver the commencement address.