DENTON, Texas Thousands of graduates will cross the stage at the University of North Texas to receive their degrees this weekend.
Among them will be Minnie Payne who completed a master’s program in interdisciplinary studies at the age of 90.
Payne is making UNT history with the achievement 73 years after graduating from high school.
“My grandson will be accompanying me across the stage,” she said.
It’s a moment she couldn’t have even dreamed of growing up in South Carolina.
“My mother and father were uneducated textile workers,” Payne said.
She was able to spend one year at junior college before she started working.
Marriage and children soon followed.
“I always wanted to improve myself. When I retired at age 68, I wasn’t doing anything constructive. And it’s my philosophy to constantly be doing something constructive,” Payne said.
The 90-year-old says doing classwork alongside students who were decades younger than her didn’t faze her one bit.
“I was 73 when I earned my undergraduate,” she said.
She’s now the oldest person to ever earn a master’s degree at UNT. And she plans to put what she’s learned into practice.
Payne recently got a new job working at a magazine in Houston.
“It’s not my intention to stop work,” she said.
Payne says her guiding philosophy is to continue to be doing something constructive.
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