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Details announced for Parson's private swearing-in as governor

Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Parson in his office on Wednesday; on Friday, he'll become the state's next governor.
Harrison Sweazea | Missouri Senate Communications
Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Parson in his office on Wednesday; on Friday, he'll become the state's next governor.

Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Parson will officially leave his old job and become the state’s 57th governor when he is sworn in at 5:30 p.m. Friday.

His low-key events, closed to the public but open to the press, include a 4 p.m. prayer service at the First Baptist Church in downtown Jefferson City. A public reception will be held at a later date, a spokeswoman said.

Lt. Gov. Mike Parson inside his Capitol office. He's set to become Missouri's 57th governor.
Credit Harrison Sweazea | Missouri Senate Communications
Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Parson in his office on Wednesday; on Friday, he'll become the state's next governor.

The swearing-in will be held in the governor’s office on the 2nd-floor of the state Capitol. State Supreme Court Judge Mary Rhodes Russell will preside.

Gov. Eric Greitens, a fellow Republican, has said he will officially resign at 5 p.m. Friday. His departure comes as Greitens faced possible impeachment amid allegations of wrongdoing involving his personal behavior and campaign-finance issues.

The Missouri secretary of state’s office says it has yet to receive Greitens’ official resignation letter. That letter needs to be in hand to make his resignation official. Greitens announced his intentions Tuesday.

Meanwhile, state Auditor Nicole Galloway says her staff will conduct an exit audit of the offices of governor and lieutenant governor. The auditor’s office regularly examines the financial dealings for all statewide offices.

Follow Jo on Twitter: @jmannies

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Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.