South Carolina resident Annie Dillard is an accomplished businesswoman and a cosmetologist who owns her own hair salon, but a few years ago, she yearned for something more. So she decided to go back to school and go through a liberal arts program. And at 92-years-old she did it. She walked across the stage and accepted her degree. But this is nothing new to Dillard
Her daughter, Gail, who happens to be a doctor, says this is Dillard’s 4th college degree.
Dillard was the first to walk the stage during the ceremony on Wednesday to pick up her new Associate Degree in Liberal Arts. She even arrived 1.5 hours early in anticipation of the big event.
“They told me to get here at 5:30, but I like to be on time, so I got here at 4 o’clock,” she said.
But she is not done with just four degrees. She begins work on her next diploma later this month. This time, she wants to earn her fifth college degree in childhood education.
“I’ve known Mrs. Dillard for a number of years, almost since she’s started at the college and I’ve been really, really pleased with her progress,” said Ronald Rhames, President of Midlands Technical College. “She would be on campus always smiling, always willing to talk with people.”
Dillard aims to set an example: No matter how old — or “seasoned” you are — if you dream it, you can do it.
“I feel excited. I feel good to the extent that I knew I would make it,” Dillard said to wcnc.com. “To be with the younger group and to be able to keep up with them, that’s a joy for me. I feel like I’m welcomed and I just felt like this was the place for me.”
“[The youngsters] say they have great inspiration and they say they’re gonna tell mom and get mom to start school,” Dillard tells TV station WLTX 19.
Dillard is a widow, a mother of one, and is active outside of the classroom as well. One commenter on a Facebook post mentioned she is a member of a bowling league.
“She is a very good bowler. I tell her all the time, I’m going be like her when I grow up.”
She earned her first degree,…
… which was a bachelor’s degree, in the 1960s.
The world record for the oldest college graduate is 95-year-old Nola Ochs graduates. The record Ochs broke, according to Guinness World Records, had belonged to Mozelle Richardson, who at age 90 in 2004 received a journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma. Who knows how many records that Annie will break.
As for her advice for anyone thinking of going back to school: “My advice is you can make it if you try, but you have to start somewhere.”
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