Frank King got a birthday present this year that not many 75-year-olds even contemplate – a bachelor’s degree.

King, who is recovering from a stroke he suffered the day after commencement, walked into the CSUB Amphitheater for the university’s 35^th commencement in June along with nearly 800 fellow graduates of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences to receive his diploma. Commencement culminated something he’s always wanted to do but because of family and job responsibilities never had the chance – until recently.

“This is for me,” he said. “People ask me what I’m going to do with this degree, and I tell them, ‘Nothing. This is for me.’ People don’t understand it.”

What makes the story even more intriguing is that he took an anthropology course as part of his minor from his daughter, Dixie King. Dixie, who graduated from CSUB in 1978 with a double major in history and anthropology, earned her doctorate in anthropology from UCLA. She founded her own company, Transforming Local Communities, Inc. “We do research and program evaluation for health related programs, and work with schools and public agencies, providing training and consulting services,” she said.

The first person in her immediate family to attend college, Dixie occasionally teaches classes for CSUB’s anthropology department. Now she’s been joined by her father as a college graduate.

“Dad is the second generation to graduate from college, but we did it in the opposite direction,” she laughed.

She also noted that Frank didn’t study for the final exam in her class.

“But I got a B,” he offered defensively.

That was probably due to the generosity of a colleague whom Dixie asked to grade his papers and final, she said. “I’d have been tougher,” she added with a grin.

Frank, however, thought statistics, a general education requirement, was tougher. “I went up to the professor and asked her, ‘Don’t I come under the no-child-left-behind act?’ I thought she would die laughing.”

Education is no laughing matter, though, to Frank. It’s something he’s always craved but never had the opportunity to pursue. He was born in Paso Robles in 1930, but his family moved a lot when he was growing up. “We lived all over the western United States,” Frank said. “My parents loved to move. Sometimes they’d move for no reason at all other than they liked the name of a town.”

“I think Dad’s achievements are all the more astonishing because they moved constantly,” Dixie said. “He went to 38 schools before he graduated from high school.”