Diplomas Bestowed, Along With a Degree of Pride

More than three decades after dropping out of college because she was afraid she couldn’t cut it, Cherie Johnson finally got her diploma Friday.

And the 50-year-old single mother from Camarillo wasn’t shy about flaunting it.

She took advantage of Oxnard College’s unusual tradition of letting each of the 200 or more graduates speak about his or her personal struggle for the long-sought sheepskin.

“I started 35 years ago,” she proudly told the audience that filled the college gym’s bleachers.

Most of her fellow students used their time at the mike to thank God, family, friends and teachers--roughly in that order. Others tearfully expressed relief that it was finally over. Some cracked jokes.

“In my first semester, I received three Fs, but I wasn’t discouraged,” said Karen Cobb, a general studies graduate. “They were my friends, family and faculty.”

Across the county at Moorpark College, where about 250 students participated in the school’s graduation ceremony, things got a little wilder.

Class and student body president Joshua Ledebur let an exotic African bird slip out of his hands while giving his student address. The red-crested touraco flew a few rows into the crowd of graduates and, much to the delight of the audience, landed on a student’s cap.

“I think that will be the last time [college president] Dr. [Jim] Walker lets anyone bring an animal to commencement again,” said Ledebur, a graduate of the school’s exotic animal training school.

But the tone grew more serious when 1995 graduate Darric McCormick approached the podium.

The 34-year-old former general contractor was paralyzed from the neck down in a 1988 accident. Like him, he said, all students had to overcome handicaps and obstacles to come as far as they did.

“I’m here to say we can all overcome those obstacles, no matter how big or how small,” McCormick said as his family stood beside him.

His message resonated with the students gathered under a pleasant, blue sky, swathed in a cooling breeze.

“It sure does,” said 35-year-old Lauren Miner, with her newborn baby and 12-year-old son next to her.

Miner, who graduated with honors, said that she was functionally illiterate when she came to Moorpark College in 1989.

“I couldn’t read a storybook to my son,” she said. “This was my second chance.”

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Now Miner is getting ready to head up to Sacramento State with the hope of becoming a teacher.

For Shital Purohit, a 25-year-old deaf immigrant from India, the time he spent at Moorpark College gave him the courage to try almost anything. Purohit, who learned both English and American Sign Language while studying at the school, is headed to Cal State Northridge to study computer science.

For students of both schools, the day was marked by mixed emotions--relief that years of midnight study sessions were behind them, sadness about leaving their college buddies.

“I’m very happy, but very emotional,” said Carol Elandt of Simi Valley. “I’ve been in [Oxnard College’s] hotel and restaurant management program with the same people for three years. So this is kind of like my second home.”

Like many others who walked across the stage in the Oxnard College gymnasium Friday, Elandt enrolled in college to change her career after years of working.

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She entered Oxnard College as a respiratory therapist. She’ll be leaving, with high honors, to pursue a job as a chef.

“I got burned out [on] people being very ill and dying,” she said. “So I figured in the hospitality industry, people are happy and everybody just wants to eat.”

Lyn Perry, 24, of Oxnard was a diesel mechanic in the Navy before being discharged in 1993.

Now, with her Oxnard College associate’s degree in biology in hand, she’s planning to enroll in Humboldt State University this fall to become a marine biologist.

But for some of the colleges’ older graduates, getting a degree was more symbolic than practical.

Mike Bird, 48, and Jay Benson, 60, both retired Navy officers living in Oxnard, coincidentally found themselves next to each other during the ceremony and swapped congratulations.

Bird dropped out of high school to join the Navy and Benson went straight into the Marine Corps after graduating. Both said they returned to school for their personal sense of accomplishment.

“I am just doing this because I have always wanted to,” said Benson. “My mother has two kids, and my sister has a master’s. Now she can say both of us have a degree.”