At 90, Minnie Payne oldest person to ever earn master's degree at UNT
DENTON - Thousands of graduates will take the stage at the University of North Texas this weekend to celebrate earning their degrees.
One of them completed a master's program at 90 years old.
"My grandson will accompany me across the stage," said Minnie Payne, who's graduating with her master's in interdisciplinary studies 73 years after she graduated from high school.
"Of course it's a long story," she said. "My mother and father were uneducated textile workers. We were poor."
Payne was able to attend one year at a junior college before she started working. Marriage and kids followed, and decades went by.
"I always wanted to improve myself," Payne said. "When I retired at age 68, I wasn't doing anything constructive, and it's my philosophy to constantly be doing something constructive."
Doing coursework alongside students decades younger than her didn't phase Payne one bit.
"I was 73 when I earned my undergraduate," she said. "They treated my like I was one of them. They treated me with respect, and I respected them."
Payne is now the oldest person to ever earn a master's degree at UNT, and she plans to put what she's learned into practice.
"Now that I've accomplished it, it seems sort of surreal," she said.
Payne recently got a new job working at a magazine in Houston.
"It's my intention to continue working as long as I am physically and mentally able to do it," said Payne.
Her commencement ceremony is at 12 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 17 in the UNT Coliseum.