Kicker - A septuagenarian graduate

NICK EICHER, HOST: Ted Sams was one of many high school graduates donning a cap and gown at San Gabriel High School in Southern California last Friday.

Receiving a diploma is something many graduates look forward to for years. But in Sams’ case, it was more years than most. Roughly 60 years!

Sams can finally call himself a graduate at the age of 78.

He told TV station KABC that he was actually very close to graduating on time in 1962.

SAMS: When I went back with my grade, they wouldn’t give me my diploma because I owed $4.80 for a book. And so I just walked away and said forget it. And over the years I’ve complained to my kids a number of times about how $4.80 kept me from having my diploma.

But the school did still have his original diploma locked away in an old filing cabinet.

Sams says he plans to hang it on the wall at home.

No word on whether he had to pay off that $4.80 to receive it. Let’s not even get started on what six decades of inflation has done to that balance.

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