Veteran to graduate 68 years after leaving college
Like so many American soldiers returning home from the Second World War, Bob Barger started working a new job and going to college. Once he settled into his career and raising a family, finishing school was no longer a priority.
Now, 68 years since he last sat in a classroom, Barger is set to graduate from the University of Toledo this week after a review of his transcripts from the late 1940s showed he completed enough courses to quality for an associate’s degree — a two-year diploma not offered when he was still in school.
“It was something I never dreamed of,” the 96-year-old Barger said. “I knew I couldn’t go back to school now.
“I’m going to be proud to hang that diploma on the wall and think about the friends behind it,” he said. “I found out without friends this old world wouldn’t be worth living in.”
The university took a look at Barger’s old school records because of a friendship he struck up with Haraz Ghanbari, the school’s director of military and veteran affairs.
They met five years ago when Ghanbari, a Navy Reserve officer, asked Barger to officiate his promotion to lieutenant.
Ghanbari later found out that Barger never graduated from the university, even though he took a full load of classes from 1947 to 1950.
“We actually had to go into the archives to find his transcripts,” said Barbara Kopp Miller, dean of University College at Toledo.