ORANGE : Spunky 73-Year-Old Is Chapman Grad

At age 73, Adelaide Tatto is the oldest undergraduate to receive a degree from Chapman University this year.

Tatto will receive her degree in health science this weekend, having completed her studies at Chapman’s West Los Angeles Academic Center, one of the university’s satellite sites.

In fact, Tatto had never seen Chapman’s main campus until she traveled from her Pacoima home last week to purchase a tassel for her graduation cap.

A retired nurse, Tatto had been working toward a degree from Chapman more than 10 years ago, courtesy of Kaiser Permanente, her employer at that time. But when she retired in 1985, Kaiser stopped paying her academic bills and Tatto left school with a semester to go.

But Tatto had always preached the value of higher education to her two children. After all, she earned a nursing degree from the Milwaukee School of Nursing half a century ago.

So as she watched her son Paul, 42, work toward a degree in management this spring from Redlands College, Tatto decided to return to school.

“You want to stay ahead of your kids,” she quipped. But “I don’t intend to get a paying job.”

Still, a bachelor’s degree has practical benefits for Tatto. For almost two years, Tatto has volunteered as an educator and speaker for AIDS Project L.A. She hopes to use her new classroom knowledge to augment her 40-minute presentations on AIDS prevention.

“Everyone who gets HIV will die,” Tatto said. “It may be 10 years or 15 years, but there is no cure. At this point, education is the only vaccine that we know of.

“I’ll go anywhere,” Tatto said of the presentations. “Wherever they want me. I go to middle schools and high schools and sororities and Rotary clubs. It’s a message that needs to be gotten out.”