NEW BERN — It’s been 70 years since Alvia Hearren completed his senior classes at Benton Harbor High School, but because of World War II, he never got to walk across a stage and receive his diploma on graduation day.
That all changed Friday evening when the 88-year-old veteran donned a black robe and square academic cap to turn his tassel with the 2013 graduating class of the Benton Harbor Tigers in Benton Harbor, Mich.
“It’s been on my mind quite a while, but more so in the last six, eight months I got to thinking about it,” said Hearren, who lives in New Bern. “I wanted to know just what it would feel like, even though in reality it’s old, I still wanted to grasp a little bit of the excitement that they have and see what it felt like.”
Hearren joined the Marine Corps on Dec. 8, 1942. He was supposed to graduate in June of 1943, but service requirements meant he had to miss his class commencement. On what was supposed to be his graduation day, Hearren was well on his way to becoming an aircraft mechanic at Cherry Point. Eventually, he shipped out to serve in the South Pacific at the tail end of the war.
Hearren’s original diploma eventually came by mail to his parents, and he located it after the war’s end, but in the last few months, he has been planning to return to his high school so he could walk across a stage and have his degree handed to him just like any other graduate.
“I just want to do it,” Hearren said before leaving for Michigan last week. “That school, while I was there, they won three straight state championships in basketball, football and in track during the time I was in high school. It was a well-known and well-liked school.”
Hearren sent a letter explaining his wishes to Benton Harbor Principal Kathy Brooks.
“He asked if he could come back and graduate, and we thought it was a wonderful opportunity for him,” she said. “We were more than happy to welcome him.
“It’s just honoring people that did good things and we want them to know that we appreciate the hard work that they did and the sacrifice that they made back then, so we’re really pleased to honor them.”
Hearren, a widower, and four of his five children joined other graduates for a reception Friday before the graduation ceremony on Filstrup Field.
“Everybody marches down the ramp. The ramp is one of the prides of Benton Harbor High School,” Brooks said. “Everyone says they want to walk the field with the yelling and so forth. That’s just a tradition here. He’ll be lined up with my graduates and he will go down with the rest of them.”
Last week, Hearren looked over a copy of his old report card, which the school found and sent to him.
“I got plenty of Bs and Cs there. That’s not too bad, I guess. I always thought I was about an average student. They got me graduated 6-9-43. That would be about right, wouldn’t it? Neeleyville, Mo., that’s where I was born,” Hearren said as he looked at the marks at his dining room table. “Evidently they kept pretty good records up there.”
Hearren said he and many classmates never thought they would have the opportunity to go to college because of the war.
“I could have got that college education too, but I went to Cherry Point and got that job for 97 cents an hour,” he said. “That’s what I started at down there. I made mechanic after nine months. When I went to mechanic, it was $1.32.”
Hearren said he walked to school from grade school all the way to high school from his home at 992 Chicago Ave., on Benton Harbor’s east side.
“I didn’t wear a hat. I wore ear muffs in the winter time. It was a long ways,” he said.
Hearren said he wants to tell the young students a couple of things if they’ll let him.
“I’d tell them that the education that they have right now is a good foundation,” he said. “I’d also like to tell them to always do unto others what you’d like done unto you. If I get the chance, that’s two things.
“Anybody graduating from high school couldn’t have a better foundation, especially with the technology we have now, the leaps and bounds and how they start children now with computers and everything in the first grade.”
Brooks believes the students will appreciate Hearren walking with them.
Hearren said he remembers good times at the school.
“I can’t gripe a bit,” Hearren said. “It was really good to me.”