In a fitting end to her undergraduate studies, 60-year-old Pauline Clarke crossed the stage with the help of her 68-year-old husband, Cardwell.

Pauline is legally blind.

She received a bachelor's degree yesterday from Virginia Union University. Cardwell helped her get it in more ways than one.

As a schoolgirl in Dinwiddie County, Pauline always wanted to attend college. But when her mother was badly burned in an accident, Clarke went to work to help make ends meet for the family, including her nine siblings.

After a career as a receptionist and stenographer, Clarke lost her vision suddenly in 2003 from diabetes complications.

"I had a terrible headache and went to bed," she recalled. "When I woke up I realized I couldn't see. Everything was just a mist."

Never one for self-pity, Clarke decided to find a way to stay busy. Less than a year after her eyesight failed, she enrolled at Virginia Union.

"It has been a difficult challenge, and some days are better than others, but I have no complaints," she said. "It happened to me, but the world doesn't just stop moving. I looked at it as the Lord saying, 'OK, it's time to do something for yourself.'"

Since the first day of classes, Cardwell has attended every one of them with Pauline, taking notes and reading her textbooks aloud at night.

"He tells everybody he's my secretary," she said with a laugh.

The Petersburg couple of 20 years embarked upon the journey cautiously at first, apprehensive of what the other students would think.

"I was a little skeptical because I knew the students were younger than I was, and I wondered if they would accept me," Pauline said. "I thought there would be laughing because of the glasses I wear. But we didn't hear any of that. We got a lot of respect from the other students and we respected them back."

Yesterday, Pauline joined 276 of her classmates receiving degrees at the school's 109th commencement in Richmond. She plans to return to the school in the next two years to pursue a master's degree in theology -- with a little help from her husband.

"This is wonderful," Cardwell said at the ceremony, sitting beside his wife, beaming. "I'm just very proud right now."

Cardwell, a retired Kaiser Aluminum employee, says the experience has him yearning to go back to school, too. But first he wants to help his wife through graduate school.

After her continued education, Pauline -- who earned her degree in religious studies with a minor in elementary education -- said she could see herself as an elementary school principal some day.

"I'll tell anybody, 'If you want to do it, it can be done,'" she said.

Like Pauline, yesterday's commencement speaker, Robert S. Jepson Jr., was the first in his family to receive a college degree.

The founder of his own investment firm and primary benefactor of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, Jepson unknowingly summarized Pauline's story in his speech.

"When your feet touch the floor every morning, think positively and gratefully about the opportunities that greet you," he told the graduates. "Life is only what you make it."
Contact Wesley P. Hester at (804) 649-6976 or whester@timesdispatch.com.