Governor Sonny Perdue took a time out from questions about a legislative special session to speak to the graduates of Berry College over the weekend.
Perdue departed from his usual speech topics on Saturday as he addressed the 2007 class of Berry College, the small liberal arts school in Rome.
Instead, Perdue turned to poetry to inspire the class, discussing Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” throughout his speech.
Still, the real story of the day belonged to Jeanne Cahill, the student speaker. Cahill graduated from Berry at the age of 74 - - 58 years after she started her undergraduate education in 1949.
She left college after two years, always planning to return. In 2003, she finally did. Perdue congratulated Cahill in his speech, joking about her age.
Jeanne, you have had a distinguished career already, but imagine what you will do as a young graduate with a degree in your hand now.Laughter followed, as did the conferring of degrees on a few hundred Berry graduates.
