93-year-old finally graduates High School

An Ohio woman expelled from high school just weeks before graduation after it was discovered she was married finally got her diploma—on her 93rd birthday.

Sources say that Dorothy Louise Liggett secretly married her husband after he was drafted into the Army in 1942. But when she accidentally let that fact slip during gym class, North High School in Akron followed school policy and kicked her out. She lived the rest of her life regretting not graduating.

Then Liggett’s 73-year-old daughter wrote a letter to Akron Public Schools superintendent David James. “To have invested 13 years in school, to have been a good student and still not receive a diploma…was simply wrong,” James said.

James surprised Liggett with a diploma for her 93rd birthday. “I always felt bad not having this,” Liggett says. “Even though I’m 93 years old, I still like having it.”

Her son says it was a “special birthday gift” for his mother. “I’m really thrilled that she is finally getting the one thing she always told us she wished she had gotten,” he says. “It gives credence to her entire life.”