Not many people earn a college diploma four years after their 50th high school reunion. Helen Parker is an exception.
The 74-year-old grandmother of 10 grown children ? and Towson University English major ? completed her degree requirements this month and is scheduled “to walk” in cap and gown Jan. 7.
“I?m a little hesitant to talk about it, actually,” Parker said. “I?m afraid they?re going find a requirement somewhere I didn?t fulfill.”
The retired Baltimore County Police Department clerical worker enrolled in her post-high school academic career in 1979 with a mix of community college courses. Her job and four children initially took time away from pursuing her degree, and later scheduling classes, taking care of her home, and paying for increasingly expensive books became a challenge, the White Marsh resident said.
Her grandchildren helped complete a dream deferred since she left Flatwood High School in Jamesville, Va., and boarded a Greyhound bus for Baltimore.
“I found work and thought I?d go back to school, but then I met my husband,” she said with a laugh.
Parker took courses on and off for years ? decades ? and then was convinced by grandson Andy Dudek to complete her Associate of Arts degree requirements at Essex Community College with him. She graduated with him from Essex in 2000.
“I told him there was no way I was taking a math class,” Parker, then 68, said. “He said he had taken a math course that was easy and would help me through it.”
After that, she began at Towson with some tuition aid from the school.
Another grandchild, Laurie Berglie, a master?s candidate in English at Towson, said her grandmother also received invitations to fraternity parties.
“That?s true,” Parker giggled. “And Bill Bateman?s (a popular off-campus watering hole). I didn?t know what to say when they?d asked me to go ? I never went.”
She?s has received A?s and B?s at Towson and made the dean?s list one semester. Parker took Shakespeare, grammar and the history of literature of the Old Testament this fall.
“I don?t think any of us realized how old Helen actually was,” said English professor Gary Wood, who taught the Old Testament class. “She was very much at ease with the other students and made a real contribution to class. It was a nice experience for everyone to have her in class.”
Today she is writing her memoirs about life growing up on a farm and going to school in a one-room schoolhouse in southwest Virginia. But she has other plans.
When her grammar class tutor asked about them, she said she is considering graduate school.
“I guess I?d rather go to college and hang out with the kids than go to the senior center,” Parker said.
