12.10.16 – Northwestern State University will award an honorary bachelor of science degree in elementary education to Noella Lyons Black of New Orleans, a former student  who attended Louisiana State Normal College, as Northwestern was then known, in the 1940s and will celebrate her 94th birthday on Christmas Day. More than 25 members of the Black family will join her for the university’s December 16, 2016, fall commencement ceremonies, fulfilling a lifelong goal for the matriarch who left college just a few credits shy of graduation.  Read more.