When Donald Iten of Clear Lake was 17 years old, he promised his mother he would one day finish his education if she would only sign the papers that would allow him to join the U.S. Marine Corps. before he graduated from high school. That was in 1960, according to his daughter, Liza Johnson, now residing at Ft. Campbell, KY., which places his service career around the time of the attempted Cuban invasion, part of the Korean War Era in military terms, Johnson said.
The fact that he did not have a diploma had weighed on her father, Johnson said, though she and other family members had to rely on a clever bit of strategy to bring the diploma chase to a successful conclusion.
“My father is VERY competitive,” Johnson wrote, “and I know that there are many options in this day and age for him to complete his education online.” The solution she and her family arrived at hinged on Iten’s constant desire to help his grandchildren with any projects, and his willingness to take on any task in that regard.
Johnson said she believed it would have been “impossible” to get her father to take part in the on-line degree program by “just asking him” to do so, but they soon hit on another way to get there. The family convinced him that he and others would be helping Johnson’s oldest daughter with a college assignment by finding the answers to a series of questions. The series of questions were “sent” to the whole family, but the only answers that really mattered were those provided by Iten, which were collected and assembled into the coursework that he needed to attain his high school diploma.
At the age of 70, Donald Iten of Clear Lake achieved his high school diploma from Jefferson High School on-line. He received his diploma in a “cap, gown and tassel” ceremony at the Iten family reunion in the city park in Clear Lake May 17. The celebration included a congratulatory cake, and the good wishes of his wife Carole, his children and all the family members present for the occasion.
Johnson said earlier she expected her father to hold his diploma in the air and say: “This is for you, Ma!” Her son, Joshua Theis, may have provided the final word on the matter: “I guess the statement that you are never too old to learn really is the case here,” he said.
