• 1952 graduate finally walks at commencement, 60 years later

    Eddie Morris

    Sixty years ago, Eddie Morris, BA ’52, graduated from Baylor — the first in his family to earn a college degree — and left soon after his last class for San Francisco, where he attended Golden Gate Seminary. In the six decades since then, Morris has pastored two Baptist churches in California and spent almost 20 years selling insurance for State Farm. But he always had one regret — one he only recently revealed to his son, Steve.

    “I asked him on one of our walks what is one of his greatest disappointments in life had been,” said Steve. “He thought for a minute and said that he regretted not walking during graduation.”

    So Steve decided to do something about that. He contacted Baylor, and university officials were glad to help that dream come true. About 40 family members from six different states descended on Waco as Eddie –five months shy of his 90th birthday — returned from his home in Oregon to his alma mater for the first time in six decades; he walked the Ferrell Center stage and received his diploma from President Ken Starr on Saturday.

    [LINKS: “A Walk to Remember,” Tualatin [Ore.] Times || “Graduation 60 Years in the Making” (video), KWTX-TV || “Two unique graduates to walk Baylor stage,” Waco Tribune-Herald]

    “It still feels like the same friendly campus that I was in 60 years ago,” he says. “I didn’t dream that I could ever go back. I didn’t think it was possible, and it never entered my mind that they would want some old man coming back and graduating with a bunch of kids.”

    “We are so indebted to Baylor,” said Steve. “They are going over and beyond what I thought they’d do.”

    Sic ’em, Eddie!