‘Better Late Than Never’: 94-Year-Old Gets High School Degree

HAZEL GREEN, AL — A 94-year-old Alabama woman became the oldest person in Madison County to earn her high school diploma. Hazel Green High School in Hazel Green, Alabama, included Grace Lee McClure Smith in their class of 2021 graduation ceremony last week.

McClure Smith dropped out of high school in 1942, so she could get married before her husband went to fight in World War II, according to local news reports from WHNT and WAAY.

She spent 30 years as a bus driver in Madison County schools before finally becoming an alum.

“It’s better late than never, isn’t it?” McClure Smith said, according to the news outlets.

Erin Wilson, McClure Smith’s granddaughter, said her grandmother does not regret waiting until age 94 to get her degree.

“She never mentioned regretting anything in life,” Wilson, who is now a teacher in the school district at Legacy Elementary School in Madison, told WAAY. “She would never take it back because she absolutely loved my grandfather and that was just what she wanted to do.”