177 graduate from Mount Olive
By Steve Herring
Published in News on August 30, 2015 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Ashley Moore, left, and Sheikka Outlaw of the Washington campus of the University of Mount Olive scream with excitement as they are called to receive their diplomas at summer commencement on Saturday afternoon.
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Ava Grace Harrell, 10 months, plays with her father's, Brent Harrell's, cords after his graduation from the University of Mount Olive on Saturday. Harrell wears a red, white and blue cord for his service in the Marines.
MOUNT OLIVE -- Vickie Rhodes Osoria, 57, a Grantham native now living at Oak Island, said she had always known that one day she would have a bachelor's degree "of some sort or the other."
That day finally arrived Saturday for Mrs. Osoria and the 176 other graduates who were awarded degrees during the University of Mount Olive's 62nd commencement held in Kornegay Arena.
The graduates represented all eight of the university's locations and were mostly working adults who had returned to school or had finally decided to attend college.
And Mrs. Osoria, as well as many of her fellow graduates, could relate to commencement speaker Dr. Dee Clere's words of achieving through "ash breeze."
Mrs. Clere, who recently retired as an English professor at the university, used Jean Lee Latham's novel "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" and her own experiences to demonstrate how waiting is part of life.
The main character in the novel, Nat Bowditch, is a genius who dreams of going to Harvard. Instead is placed in indentured servitude for eight years.
One character tells him, "Bah! Only a weakling gives up when he's becalmed! A strong man sails by ash breeze!"
Without wind to fill the sails it becomes necessary to break out the oars, Mrs. Clere said. The oars were made of white ash, hence the term "sail by ash breeze."
Mrs. Clere said she would like to wish that all of the students would always enjoy full winds to fill their sails throughout their life, but that more often than not people have to achieve by using their own "ash breeze."
Mrs. Osoria, who grew up in Princeton and graduated from Princeton High School, received a bachelor of science degree in business management.
"I took some (classes) online, but I took most of them at the Wilmington location," she said. "(After high school) I got married and had kids and kind of always wanted a college degree. Then back in the early '90s I decided I was going to go back to school, work part time. I had three kids. I got about halfway through, I was going to Wake Tech, and I came up pregnant with baby No. 4.
"I said, 'Well this is too much, but one day when all of my kids are gone and out of the house I will go back to school.' My youngest daughter, Stefani, graduated June 12 (2010) from North Brunswick (High School). I think my first day of class was August 10 or 11 (of 2010)."
Mrs. Osoria said she was doing well and had a good grade point average, but the following March suffered a stroke.
"It kind of knocked me down a little bit, but I kept plugging and plugging and it has been a long, hard road," she said. "I was in the accounting program. But because the stroke left me with double vision I just couldn't do the numbers.
"So I switched over to business management, and it still kind of gave me a little bit of a fit. It was a long, hard road, but I made it. I am contemplating working on my master's starting in the spring semester."
Mrs. Osoria volunteers with the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office, where some of the deputies helped her with her final research paper.
She said "thank you" by taking them homemade pecan pies.
The Sheriff's Office is implementing a new program, and she is putting in an application for it on Monday.
"I live at the beach, and I have a little bit of summer left so that is feeling pretty good, but at the same time I catch myself asking, 'What am I going to do now?," she said. "I don't have any school work to do. But I am also a quilter and I do a lot of community projects.
"It (education) is very empowering. I would encourage anybody. Education doesn't hurt you. I don't care if you plan to use it for a job or not. I feel like a different person. The toughest part about going back to school was just that I am older. You have to work a little harder at it and put time into it. And then trying to work, too. A working adult going to school is not an easy thing to do. I think they (family) were pretty proud of me and supportive."
Nearby, 10-month-old Ava Grace was more interested in her father's, Brent Harrell's, graduation cords and diploma in criminal justice, than having her photo taken with him and her mother, Lauren.
Harrell, 32, of New Bern, was wearing the red, white and blue cord identifying his military service. He served in the U.S. Marines for eight years.
After receiving his associate's degree Harrell said he had started a search for a bachelor's program he could go to and came upon Mount Olive.
"You have got to be able to balance family and work," he said. "It is an achievable goal that looking back on was very worthwhile. But balancing was probably the hardest part."
Harrell said he would definitely recommend the adult program.
"It is a seated course to where you could actually get, as an adult, the education that you want to have without having to do online," he said. "It will help out with further advancement later on."
Harrell works with the Craven County Sheriff's Office.
"I go in Monday night," he said. "So I had the pleasure of having the weekend off. No big plans now, just go home and take a five-minute break maybe while she (Ava Grace) is napping."