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Last updated on Thursday, January 24, 2013
(LINTON) - 85-year-old Raymond Thomas and 81-year-old Warren “Houston” Thomas, both of Linton earned their high school diplomas.
Sabrina Westfall of The Greene County Daily World reports that the brothers, both veterans, were given the diplomas at The Linton-Stockton School Corporation Board of Trustees meeting this week.
Both men dropped out of high school and joined the military as teenagers.
The brothers said they never thought they would see the day they received their high school diploma, but a newspaper article turned them to the direction of Linton teenager Joie Gadberry.
Gadberry, a Linton-Stockton High School senior, helped her grandfather Hubert Pitcher, a Korean War veteran, receive his diploma through the Department of Veterans Affairs Delayed High School Diploma Program.
Raymond Thomas would have graduated from Linton-Stockton High School in 1947 but entered the workforce at Crane until he was 18. He was drafted into the Army in 1945 and served in World War II serving in the U.S. Army of Occupation in Italy and was attached to the 34th Red Bull Division in the 34th Station Hospital in Rome.
Houston Thomas would have graduated from Linton-Stockton High School in 1951, but left in 1949 to join the workforce at the Linton Summit Coal Company. Six months after marrying his wife Betty he was drafted into the Army to serve in the Korean War and served with the 116th Engineer Combat Battalion, 19th Engineer Combat Group.
Raymond says the brothers are two of nine children and the only two that had not graduated from high school.
If any veterans or their family members are interested in learning how to acquire the Delayed High School Diploma, contact Gadberry at 847-3913.
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