87-Year-Old Graduates From Utah High School With Great-Granddaughter
Rolleen Littlefield Taysom isn’t your average high school graduate.
— -- Rolleen Littlefield Taysom isn't your average high school graduate.
The 87-year-old Utah great-grandmother turned heads as she lined up with the rest of Lehi High School's graduating class this week to receive her diploma.
"They kept looking at me when they passed like, 'What are you doing here?'" Taysom said in an interview Friday with ABC affiliate KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City.
Taysom waited seven decades to graduate from high school. She dropped out in 1944 after her father died so she could help her widowed mother support eight children.
"I knew that she was kind of out of money and needed help, so I told her I'd go to work," she told KTVX.
That's why Taysom thought her family was joking when they said she would finally be graduating this year with her great-granddaughter Shae Spencer.
"We went and set up an interview with the superintendent of Alpine School District, and he was like, 'Yeah that's totally OK!'" Spencer said in an interview with KTVX on Friday.
Clad in white caps and gowns, Taysom and Spencer walked arm-in-arm during the graduation ceremony held at Utah Valley University in Orem this week. The audience gave the granny a standing ovation when she received her diploma on stage.
"It made me feel good, like I was doing something special and honorable," Taysom told KTVX, smiling. "I feel like I really did what I wanted."
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