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One of the factors which affected his working relationship with members of the geology department was the fact that he didn’t have a college degree. After all, how could he understand the important things that they knew, that one had to know about paleontology if he hadn’t done the grunt and grind work of a PhD. (I have one and I know just how little they really represent in the grand scheme of things.) To compound his crime, he didn’t even have a high school diploma. There were faculty members who didn’t care about this difference. They took the man for what he was and were content. He was a lot. But there were those persnickety ones who held their censorious pinched noses in the air and held their breath when passing him in the hall, hoping he would not address them. This attitude even spread to the children of some of these men and one bright spring day a brash ignorant son of a Rigby told me, why I don’t know as we passed in the hallway, “Know what? I’m going to get your dad’s job.” Of course, he was callow and young and no such thing would happen, but the fact of his speaking of it reflected dinner table conversations that didn’t paint a pretty picture of dad and didn’t reflect well on the faculty member..
Of course, he understood human nature and he agreed upon taking the job in response to Dean Armin J. HIll that he would pursue a GED. Since mom didn’t have her degree, and not wanting to be be left behind(!), she agreed that she would attend the evening GED classes with him. I suspect that was primarily just to get him to go. That is suggested by the fact that he didn’t receive his diploma until TWO years after he started. The classes were taught in Provo High School.
Dipl omas were awarded in May, 1963:
Both of them were now able to hold their heads high, even when in the proximity of those faculty members who looked down on them
An interesting consequence of getting a high school diploma was its effect on dad’s old high school in Delta and its effect on his nightmare. Unbeknownst to me, he had recurring nightmares about missing the school bus. Each time he ran to catch it, he was almost there when the door closed and the bus drove away. He’d wake up sweating and anxious, losing sleep and being generally irritated. Well, mom I suppose had the idea of asking the Delta high powers that be if they would allow dad to actually march with their graduating class that spring. Sure they said, they’d be thrilled to have home-grown, their own, Dinosaur Jim, grace their celebration with his presence. So he suited up in the cap and gown and marched at the front of the class, He received his diploma before the others in an extra ceremony. No more nightmares.
Another interesting discovery was made by Delta. The principal at the time pulled dad’s records which were still there, a surprise to me having worked in hospitals where records and xrays and EEGs and so on do get lost. After examining it, the principal discovered that dad actually did have enough credits to have graduated with his class in 1936.
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omas were awarded in May, 1963: