Photos 2012-1 -DAVE WHITE, New College Grad

Standing: Dave's brother Travis; sis-in-law Hanneke (Terry's wife); niece Anna, brother Terry;
Seated: sis-in-law Sharon (Travis's wife); our matey Dave; sister Priscilla
[Dave's wife Anita was ill and unable to attend the ceremonies and celebration]

With a bit of urging, Dave discloses some details about himself, family and how he ended up getting a college degree at age 73:

Question: Your brother Travis flew all your siblings to your college graduation in his own airplane?

A: Yes. My brother Travis put the graduation celebration trip together and lined up the various stops to pick up our other siblings.. Friday morning he and his wife Sharon flew in their plane from their home in Austin to Dallas, where they picked up our sister Priscilla.. then they headed to Santa Fe to pick up brother Terry, his wife Hanneke and their daughter Anna. All landed in Tucson around 12:30 noon, got a bite to eat and arrived at the Convention Center for the convocation, which began at 2:00.

Q: What's your background? Well, I was born in a mining camp north of Tucson; my father worked for ASARCO at the time, so I am a native of Arizona. During WWII, he was transferred to El Paso to work at the smelter there. We lived up the valley on a farm until I was in the eighth grade, when we moved to Kern Place. My first two years of high school were at El Paso High. Our next move was to the Memorial Park area, so my sister and I transferred to Austin and our younger brothers attended Crockett.

Jobs included being resident general manager of Paso Del Norte Hotel in downtown El Paso; a stint at the El Paso Natural Gas Company.. then I worked at State National Bank in El Paso and for a few years owned 2000 acres of farm land in Esperanza, Texas, on the border about 80 miles south of El Paso; we had a general store, pen feed operation, and an Exxon station. I eventually sold the property and moved to Los Angeles, where I was regional manager for UCB bank and later an advertising artist for NCR. Most of my customers were movie and movie-related firms, it was fun and I met a few movie stars along the way.

Finally I made my way back to Tucson, a city I'd always liked since early childhood, and went to work for CBS Property Services, where I stayed put till retirement. My wife Anita and I enjoy ourselves here.

One might say my life has been one big adventure in many ways, never dull for sure.

Q: Why did you decide, in your 70s, to finish college? Long ago I worked on a team to pass the UCC codes and the Truth and Lending Acts in all the states and Great Britain; the team consisted of nine lawyers, a legal secretary and me... I felt like a dummy because I was the only one without a college degree, so I began studies by correspondence from La Salle University in Chicago, planning on a law degree. The American Bar Association thwarted that plan, however, when it did away with all clerking and correspondence studies and apprenticeships, and created the requirement of "having to be in attendance in a recognized college for a minimum of two years." By that time I had accrued 174 hours of college studies, but in a lot of different degree plans. To wrap it all up, I needed to get into a degree plan that fit everything I had studied -- Political Science was a fit for a major and because I worked in commercial real estate for 38 years, my minor was economic redevelopment.

Now I'm a college graduate... and considering what interesting new plan to pursue.