Spring Break
61-year-old student to graduate Summa Cum Laude in second college attempt
Rachel Dembrun
Issue date: 5/11/09 Section: News
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These things seem like the characteristics of your typical undergraduate, but the fact that he's 61-years-old and graduating Summa Cum Laude and with honors makes McGarity as different as can be.
McGarity set a goal four years ago when he came back to school.
"I decided if I was going to do it I was going to have to do it seriously," he says. "And I had to set a goal for myself to graduate Summa Cum Laude."
He will graduate with a composite GPA of 3.973 if he receives the A's he expects from his final classes -- which is better than his first time around.
When McGarity first graduated from high school, he didn't have the passion or the yearning to go to college. Instead he joined the army, where he worked as a microwave radio repairman, a job inspired by his child-hood fascination with the makings of radios.
After serving in the military for three years, he decided to go to school in northern California on the GI Bill of Rights and graduated from Santa Rosa Junior College in 1972.
When McGarity graduated with a degree in electronics almost 40 years ago, he didn't take it seriously.
"I'm not a dummy," he says. "But I never applied myself when I was young,".
With a degree in hand, McGarity became a field service engineer for a company based out of California. For more than 17 years he traveled the world and lived in different countries including Italy, Iran, South Korea, Germany, and Japan.
It was in Japan where he met and wed his wife, Betty, in 1987.
Chuckling when asked about the wedding, he says that there were no "I do's." Instead, he and his wife completed a long chain of paper work through the U.S. Embassy and the Japanese government. When McGarity presented his passport to the embassy he asked when there was a ceremony and "I do's" and the man responded, "You already did."
When he and his wife moved to California in the late 1980s, McGarity continued to work with Agilent Technologies.
In 2002 McGarity transferred to Loveland to pursue a different job with the same company, but a week after the move, the job required moving back to California.
McGarity decided against the move, taking a local position. But in 2006 the company moved completely out of Colorado and into Malaysia.
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