The first death row inmate to be executed in the U.S. in 2011 is scheduled to die by lethal injection in Oklahoma for the baseball-bat beating death of a convenience store worker almost 16 years ago.

Billy Don Alverson is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening for the 1995 death of Richard Yost, who was the night manager of a convenience store in Tulsa.

Yost's bound and beaten body was discovered on the floor of the store's cooler.

Kenneth England of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., says Alverson's execution at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester will be the first in the U.S. this year.

England says 17 other executions are scheduled across the nation, including another one in Oklahoma on Tuesday.