December Column Winner

The graduate

By Brian Blansett, The Lincoln County News

Friday evening, we all stood as the Graduation March played.

The 220 about-to-be-graduates of OSU’s Institute of Technology began their march through the door at the back of the hall and I searched the sea of black caps and gowns for one particular person.

Finally, I saw her: Kindra, whose face was beaming.

A mother of three who’d put her life and plans on hold for the sake of her kids and her family, she had gone back to school at 34 to pursue her dream of earning a college degree.

She started her journey not long after we got married in February 2020, just before COVID happened. 

She’d wanted to finish a degree for quite some time, but the simultaneous opportunity and the reality of our lives had made it the right time to take the plunge.

As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she could get scholarships from the tribe, and she was still working for the Lincoln County News as a graphic artist and ad coordinator. 

So she had money for tuition, books, gasoline and expenses, and she had flexibility to work at home on her own schedule.

There was also the fact that I was twice as old as she was when we got married. The age gap never seemed to bother her as much as it did me, but there remained one awkward reality: most likely, I will walk on, as the Potawatomis say, long before she does.

She would need to have a career in place before that hour might come.

Now, she had the means to pay as she went without going in debt. She didn’t have to worry about the bills at home being paid, and she had a supportive spouse and family. 

Everything was aligned correctly and it was  time for her to take the first step on that walk that she completed on Friday.

And that’s what she did. She wanted to get a degree in culinary arts and become a chef, so she enrolled at OSUIT and started everything in motion.

It wasn’t easy. She had to drive round-trip to Okmulgee at least four times a week and she still had to raise three kids and a husband in addition to maintaining her job and classwork, which included algebra.

But she did it. In spades. A couple of hours before the graduation ceremony she was honored as the outstanding graduate in her division and she graduated summa cum laude, with highest honors.

I was the proudest person in the hall when they read her name and she walked across the stage.