Wright Brothers family member to get honorary degree from WSU

Amanda Wright-Lane, great grand-niece of Wilbur and Orville Wright, inside Hawthorn Hill, the home of the Wright Brothers in Oakwood.  TY GREENLEES/STAFF

Amanda Wright-Lane, great grand-niece of Wilbur and Orville Wright, inside Hawthorn Hill, the home of the Wright Brothers in Oakwood. TY GREENLEES/STAFF

Wright State University will award an honorary degree to a relative of the Wright Brothers during the school’s commencement ceremony next month.

Amanda Wright Lane, great grandniece of Wilbur and Orville Wright, will receive an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the university.

Wright State’s graduation ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. May 4 at the Nutter Center. The spring class of 2019 includes 2,082 graduates, according to the school.

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Wright Lane is the fourth member of the Wright family to receive an honorary degree from Wright State.

“I consider it a high, high honor,” she said. “I was so proud the day my dad received his degree, his passion for this university was so evident. And I believe I caught that passion too.”

Her great aunt and uncle, Ivonette Wright Miller and Horace Wright, received honorary degrees in 1981, and her father, Wilkinson Wright, was honored in 1999. The honorary degree is wonderful recognition of the volunteer work she has done at the university “just as my father and great aunt and uncle did before me,” she said.

Over the years, Wright Lane has remained involved with the university that bears her family’s namesake.

Wright Lane is currently co-chair of Discover Your Story: The Campaign for the Wright State University Archives Center. The $6.5 million fundraising campaign enable the Special Collections and Archives to move into the former Wright-Patt Credit Union building the school previously purchased.

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