SPANISH FORK — Vern Huff has lived life much like most of the men he knows. He married his sweetheart, raised a family and put in many a good day's work.
But the 92-year-old couldn't shake the feeling he needed to tend to unfinished business.
What was amiss? Huff regretted never earning a high school diploma — and he no longer wanted to live with that regret.
So the senior citizen returned to finish his senior year in high school.
Huff's diploma dreams were realized Friday when he was handed a piece of paper that proclaims his completion of high school graduation requirements.
To be sure, he's the oldest 2004 graduate in the Nebo School District. And school officials say he may be the oldest person to receive a Utah high school diploma.
"I wanted to do it, no matter what," Huff said. "I got it done. I'm very happy about it."
At school district headquarters, Brent Gordon, president of Nebo's school board, and Brent Hawkins, Nebo's adult education coordinator, handed the diploma to the happy graduate.
"That's something," said Lee Huff, Vern's 83-year-old brother said. "He wanted his diploma."
The other Huff siblings — four other boys and four girls — graduated with their classes.
But Vern Huff's schooling slipped after he suffered a serious case of appendicitis.
Doctors restricted Huff from playing baseball when he returned to Spanish Fork High School. Then, life happened.
His father, a forest ranger, put him to work on the family farm.
Huff moved to Woodland to find work in the early 1930s and never returned to his native Lake Shore, where he was born in 1911.
Instead, he met and married his wife, Ruth, and settled in.
"We've had a good life together," Ruth Huff said. "There were sad times, but we've had a lot of good years together."
The couple had three children. James Huff died in a car accident in 1959. Delora Young, a daughter, died of cancer. Daughter Bonita Atkinson lives near her parents.
The couple has nine grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren.
The family farmed in the Uinta Basin for 20 years. Vern Huff also held several other jobs, including mining, truck driving and finally Summit County building inspector, a job he had for 11 years before retiring in 1983.
Vern Huff's nephew, Marlin Huff, who once worked for Spanish Fork High in adult education, encouraged his uncle last fall to fulfill his dream.
"It didn't take much encouragement," Ruth Huff said.
Vern Huff found that he didn't need many credits. The district gave him credit for the life history he had written and for playing the guitar as a youngster. The rest was downhill.
Still an avid sports fan, Vern Huff recalls watching Jack Dempsey fight. But now he's content to manage baseball games on television from his easy chair.
E-mail: rodger@desnews.com