North Texas great-grandmother earns college degree, proving it is never too late to achieve your dreams
DALLAS — Anna Marie Pedford has been called many things... in love.
"I get called Nana, Nonny, Grandma, Granny," the 79-year-old great-grandmother said with a laugh. "Sometimes I don't even know my own name."
But this week, she proudly made room for another title: college graduate. Pedford earned her degree in psychology from UNT Dallas.
"I have butterflies," she said with a mixture of humility and pride. "I had no idea there were such great people in the world who want to see me succeed. People I don't even know. And people here at this university, they want you to succeed."
Pedford first stepped onto a college campus six decades ago but decided she wasn't ready. She now admits she lacked focus, and her parents agreed when she begged to come home. A marriage, kids, and a career followed, but she kept making excuses for not going back to college. Then a colleague encouraged her to take a class. After earning her associate degree from Dallas College, she decided that dreams shouldn't have expiration dates. Now, she's a living lesson in courage and determination.
"You have naysayers out there who are always going to tell you that you can't do something," Pedford said, showing the feisty spirit that helped her navigate college later in life. "And I love it when they tell me I can't do something because that gives me so much determination to prove them wrong."
As for classes with peers young enough to be her grandchildren, Pedford said she loved it and shared several stories of classmates hurrying to help her navigate the campus in a wheelchair following an accident. On another occasion, a classmate hurried to find a stocked vending machine when she showed up to class without her customary bag of peanut M&Ms. She also admitted with a laugh that she was more likely to be the class "cut-up," regardless of her great-grandmother status.
"I don't think age has anything to do with it," Pedford said. "I think my whole outlook is 'I love myself, I like who I am,' and I'm a person who likes to be challenged. I've had so much of that in this journey that I'm on, and I love it. I really love it."
Pedford said she knew her family couldn't make it to the mid-week ceremony, at least not the ones whose names she knew.
"I roll across this stage," she recalled. "They announced my name and magna cum laude. I had people actually standing up in the audience, and I mean, she said, 'I thought you said you didn't have any family.' And this university has become my family. They're my family. I mean, I have never been in a university where people are so encouraging, no matter what your age is."
So now that she has her bachelor's degree, what's next?
"I've already applied for grad school and been accepted," Pedford said. "I'm going to keep going. And when I leave here, I want my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren to say, 'My grandmother left me a legacy, that you can do anything you want to do, anything you put your mind to, you can do.'"