photo by: Richard Gwin

Melinda Hipple has graduated from Baker University two days before her 62nd birthday. She is also the house mother of Zeta Chi Fraternity.

Melinda Hipple will celebrate her 62nd birthday Tuesday as a new college graduate with added confidence in her writing skills.

Hipple was one of the Baker University undergraduates to receive degrees Sunday from Baker President Lynne Murray. It marked the end of her four-year quest to earn a degree in English with a focus on creative writing and a minor in art.

Unlike many of her fellow members of the Class of 2016, Hipple’s life won’t change dramatically with the ceremony. She won’t be starting a new job or career, move from Baldwin City or pursue a master’s degree.

Hipple will keep both her job and residence as house mother for Baker’s Zeta Chi Fraternity. She is anxious nonetheless to put her new degree, or at least the hard-earned knowledge behind it, to work.

“I want to explore applying what I’ve learned to my writing,” she said. “I know I’ve improved. It will be interesting if editors think so, too.”

She’s always had an interest in writing, particularly poetry and science fiction, Hipple said. She’s had a number of short stories and poems published and has authored three unpublished novels.

“My first novel was a 150,000-word epic,” she said of the science fiction work. “I actually got a hand-written note from an editor on that one. I thought it was nice an editor took the time to write a note with the form letter.”

Hipple subsequently cut 35,000 words from the manuscript and plans to have another go at it with her studies completed. Her other manuscripts are a short mystery and another science fiction work.?”The third book is about aliens blowing up Kansas City, starting with the Liberty Memorial,” she said with a smile.

She didn’t start at Baker from scratch, Hipple said. She was able to dust off and transfer 30 of the 39 hours she earned four decades earlier at what is now Missouri State University as an art major.

“I started right out of high school,” she said. “At that time, sending a daughter to college was seen as a way of expanding the gene pool. Once I met my husband, I quit.”

She first landed in Baldwin City when she and her now ex-husband moved to Kansas from Oregon.

“He started working in Topeka, and I got a job in Kansas City,” she said. “Baldwin was a compromise place to live. We liked the idea of living in a smaller community.”

Her awareness of Baker grew when her husband took a job at the school to start its environmental science program, Hipple said. The couple did move on, but she moved back to Baldwin City after her divorce “because it felt like home,” she said.

She started working weekends at Kwik Shop, befriending many Baker students dropping in for munchies during her red-eye shift. Five years ago, Hipple took the Zeta Chi house mother position. Students at the convenience store and at the fraternity encouraged her to return to school and helped her take that leap without feeling out of place as one of the school’s few nontraditional full-time students.

“I think because I had become friends with a lot of students at that point in time and because they were close to the age of my son, I felt pretty comfortable on campus,” she said. “I’m pretty brazen. I actually felt pretty confident in my classes, except for French and algebra.”

The house mother job worked out well, because it gave her time for school work and, on occasion, a handy study group, Hipple said.

“They knew where to find me if something came up,” she said. “If I wasn’t at the house or in class, they knew they could usually find me in the library.”

She didn’t let her age cheat her of a full college experience, taking an interterm class that visited Peru in January and took advantage of Baker’s relationships with the University of Evanville’s Harlaxton College in Grantham, England, to study one semester abroad.?”What better place for an English major to take a Shakespeare class than in England?” she asked.

Once again, she was able to fit in with the younger students, enjoying social times with them in the Harlaxton coffee shop, Hipple said. She struck up close friendships with a couple of art students with whom she went on excursions to the continent.

“When you already have a place to stay, it’s not that expensive to travel in Europe,” she said. “We were able to go to Paris, Scotland and quite a bit around Italy.”

She had the best of both worlds, Hipple said. In addition to her friendships with students, she accepted invitations to join instructors at social gatherings.

At Baker, she developed close relationships with a number of instructors, which she is pleased she could maintain as she continues to live in Baldwin City.

One of those instructors, Baker University assistant professor of English Joanne Janssen, said Hipple brought such dedication to her classwork that

“It’s a real pleasure as an instructor to learn from students,” she said. “Because she was exploring so many complex ideas, I feel I benefitted from that as well.”

She will miss those kinds of classroom interactions, and may take a few classes of interest in the years ahead, Hipple said.

As for other older adults considering starting or returning to college, her experience shows it’s never too late to take on new intellectual challenges, Hipple said.

“Go for it,” she said. “It keeps you engaged, and it helps you stay young.”