95 year old woman fulfills lifelong dream of graduating from college

Sitting on the front row in her college classes carefully taking notes, Nola Ochs is just as likely to answer questions as to ask them. That's not the only thing distinguishing her from fellow students at Fort Hays State University. She's 95, and when she graduates May 12, she'll be what is believed to be the world's oldest person to be awarded a college degree.

She didn't plan it that way. She just loved to learn as a teenager on a Hodgeman County farm, then as a teacher at a one-room school after graduating from high school and later as a farm wife and mother.

"That yearning for study was still there. I came here with no thought of it being an unusual thing at all," she said. "It was something I wanted to do. It gave me a feeling of satisfaction. I like to study and learn."

"We should all be so lucky and do such amazing things. Her achievement challenges us all to reach for our own goals and dreams," said Tom Nelson, AARP chief operating officer in Washington.

Ochs started taking classes at Dodge City Community College after her husband of 39 years, Vernon, died in 1972. A class here and there over the years, and she was close to having enough hours for an undergraduate degree. Last fall, Ochs moved the 100 miles from her farm southwest of Jetmore to an apartment on campus to complete the final 30 hours to get a general studies degree with an emphasis on history.

Ochs hasn't complained about the work, nor has she asked for special considerations.
In her one-bedroom apartment, books are open and papers and notes are within easy reach when she sits down at her computer to research and write.

"I came up here with that purpose. No, I never doubted it. Other people did it," she said. "I came up here to work, and I enjoy it." An added joy for Ochs is that her 21-year-old granddaughter, Alexandra Ochs, will graduate with her.
After that?

"I'm going to seek employment on a cruise ship as a storyteller," she said, smiling.
The determined look in her eye leaves no doubt she's serious.