CHANUTE — Talk of graduation — or a diploma — causes Rita Dillow to bubble with excitement. While holding the Humboldt High School diploma she will receive officially in a couple weeks, she looks at it occasionally, as if checking to be sure her name is printed there.
“All my life I have wanted to graduate from Humboldt High School,” Dillow said. “That’s been my goal ever since I can remember.”
Dillow, 61, grew up in Humboldt where she attended elementary and Zillah schools, then during her sixth-grade year, her family moved. Even after all these years, she still considers Humboldt as home.
“I went to school in Chanute, but I wasn’t a very good student and I was two years behind,” Dillow admitted. In 1967, after 10th grade, she dropped out of high school.
She never forgot her dream of getting a “Humboldt” high school diploma and made an attempt to achieve that goal 10 years ago when she signed up for adult education classes at what then was the Humboldt Academy on Bridge Street.
Several family members started with her, including her husband. She added credits to her transcript, but still needed more to receive a diploma.
In 2011 Dillow’s hope was renewed when Jody Siebenmorgen, program director of Humboldt’s Virtual Education Program, called and explained the new Virtual educational opportunity.
“I was so happy,” Dillow said, “I told her ‘sign me up.’”
Dillow needed three science classes to earn enough credits to graduate.
“I had a hard time comprehending science while in school,” Dillow said. “But here, Jody helps me understand it. She doesn’t know how much she is appreciated.”
Dillow first took the program’s classes over the Internet until she lost service.
Still determined, Dillow came to the USD 258 Board of Education office each Tuesday after work where she could take advantage of the free Internet service to complete her work in Life and Earth Science.
Because the Virtual Education Program offers 24-hour support, students can receive guidance anytime.
Adults are required to have 21 credits compared to school-age students who need 25 credits to graduate.
Dillow was informed on April 10 that she would graduate. “She was so happy,” Siebenmorgen said. “She was jumping up and down and crying.”