BUENA PARK : At 74, Father of 6 Receives His Diploma

Candido Bocanegra, 74, used to become embarrassed and angry with himself when one of his six children approached him with school work.

“It was very hard for me,” Bocanegra said. “My children would come up to me and say, ‘Hey, Dad, can you help me?’ and I’d have to say ‘No, I don’t know how.”’

Growing up in a small town in Mexico, Bocanegra never had much time to attend school. Then when he was 16, his parents died, leaving him to care for three younger brothers and four younger sisters. Survival won out over schooling.

But after he retired, Bocanegra said, he decided that it was time to get the education he missed. On Tuesday, after taking independent-study classes at Buena Park High School, Bocanegra donned a purple gown and mortar board and received his diploma with about 80 night-school students from the Fullerton Joint Union High School District.

Bocanegra became the sixth member of his family to graduate from Buena Park High School. Three of his sons and two of his daughters have graduated. His third daughter, Edicsa, 16, is a junior there.

Throughout his life, Bocanegra said, his lack of education has hurt him. He immigrated to the United States at age 24, uneducated, unable to speak English and with no job skills.

He chose then not to attend school “because no one was there to tell me how important it was,” he said. “I wanted to take it easy.”

But now he is angry with himself for that choice, he said. His lack of education kept him from advancing very far in his 37-year career with Hunt-Wesson Foods in Fullerton. He retired as a fork-lift operator.

Now, he reads about the large number of teen-agers dropping out of high school and wishes he could tell them to stay.

“I want to encourage kids to stay in school,” he said. “Education is the key to everybody’s future.”

Bocanegra attended the high school as an independent-study student, which allowed him to come in at night, receive assignments, turn in homework and ask questions of the teachers.

“He always worked very hard and always diligently,” said Ken Bell, supervisor of the independent study program at Buena Park High School. “He just kept coming in and doing work. His output was probably more than the average independent-study student.”

Throughout the years, Bocanegra took all the classes ordinary high school students take except for one, Bell said.

“We didn’t make him take physical education,” Bell said. “We gave him a variance on that.”

As a graduation gift, Bocanegra’s wife, Lucila, 54, gave him a Buena Park High School Class of ’90 ring, inscribed with his name, which he now wears proudly on his right hand.

“I am happy he’s gone to school,” she said.