Gardnerville resident earns second degree at age 62

Gardnerville resident Franca Williford first attended college for two years when she graduated from high school in 1965.

On Tuesday she'll get an associate's degree in early childhood education from Western Nevada College.

"After high school I went to college for a little more than two years," the 62-year-old said. "But then I stopped and traveled. I lived in Italy. When I came back I started working and I wanted to be an independent person. Life gets in the way and I just never finished."

Williford has been in banking for more than 23 years, but started taking classes at Western Nevada in 1999.

"I started taking one or two classes a semester," she said. "My previous college gave me some credits, but there were a lot of things I had to take over. WNC was an excellent experience. Being older, I enjoyed it even more. It didn't feel like something I had to do. It was something I wanted to do."

Williford moved to Gardnerville 17 years ago, after living for five years at Lake Tahoe.

She officially completed her second associate's degree last year, but filed the paperwork to graduate this year.

Williford gave up a banking career to obtain her degree. She went to school and worked at the college's child development center for six months. She hasn't found work in the field yet.

"I'm still looking," she said. "I'm either going to fall back on what I know, which is banking, or moving on into the unknown, which is teaching."

She realizes that in order to teach, she will probably have to pursue a higher degree.

"Teaching is one area that they haven't done a lot of cutbacks in, and I understand that UNR has an excellent teaching program."

There are always other classes that Williford said she'd enjoy.

"I'd like to learn Spanish," she said. "I'll take classes that interest me. I'm not doing it for anybody else but myself."