Abner Simon’s visited the Cormier Museum during his whirlwind tour of Orangefield
Abner Simon grew up in Orangefield and played football for the Bobcats, but he never graduated. World War II got in the way. He was drafted when he turned 18 in July 1945 and didn’t finish his senior year.
“That’s one thing I always regretted, not getting my high school diploma,” he said.
Friday he became an Orangefield High School graduate at the age of 89 with the “Pomp and Circumstance” of a full ceremony.
The Richmond, Virginia, resident was surprised not only by a diploma, but by his graduation. Nothing had been planned.
His son accompanied him on a trip to Texas to visit relatives and they drove through Orangefield to look at the community.
Simon wanted to check his high school transcript to see his status. He shed a few tears when Superintendent Dr. Stephen Patterson told him the transcript listed him as a graduate. “I always wanted to be a high school graduate,” he said.
Patterson said the transcript included his elementary grades from the long-gone Duncan Woods School between Orangefield and Vidor.
Even without the transcript, the school district could issue him the high school diploma. Patterson said the state several years ago passed legislation allowing World War II veterans who left high school to fight as qualified to get a diploma.
Patterson decided Simon deserved to get the diploma immediately. He found a school board member to sign it to add to the required signatures. But that wasn’t all. As Simon and his son toured the school district’s Cormier Museum, Patterson and high school Principal Zach Quinn got the band along with the junior and senior classes to gather in the gymnasium.
Simon, wearing an orange cap and gown, was surprised to enter the gym to the sound of “Pomp and Circumstance” and a crowd. He walked slowly on his cane beaming after wiping tears from his cheeks. He wasn’t the only one with tears.
When he got to his chair set up near a podium, he waved his cane in the air as the students and faculty cheered.
Patterson explained the significance of the occasion and as is tradition, Principal Quinn handed him the diploma with a handshake.
Simon, a Baptist minister who still preaches once a month, told the students “Don’t stop until you get your diploma and remember Jesus loves you.”
Students then lined up to congratulate him, shake his hand or give him a hug.
Senior Mac Patterson, son of the superintendent, came up and asked his father if the diploma makes Simon a member of the Class of 2017. Dr. Patterson said yes; so Mac requested a class photograph. All the seniors sat in the gymnasium bleachers and smiled with Simon in his cap and gown grinning front and center.
Before the ceremony, Simon and his son walked through the expansive Cormier Museum, which contains the private electric collection of a late Orangefield oilman. The exhibits include memorabilia from the local high school decades ago. Simon even found a framed photograph of Rose Mae Hutchinson. “I had a crush on her,” he said. Her younger brother, Ronnie Hutchinson, lives near the school and the staff called him to come and visit.
Back in World War II, Simon was being trained by the Army to be part of the invasion force on Japan. The atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August that year ended the war. He later went to occupied Japan. After serving, he came back to Southeast Texas and worked at Texaco.
In 1949, he went to East Texas Baptist College and first took remedial classes to make up for the lack of a high school diploma. He has been preaching for 70 years, setting up churches across Texas before moving to Virginia many years ago.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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