Congrats Jared!

While, this event happened in December....it's too important not to write about now, and I want to be able to print this off with the rest of the book at the end of the year.

As most of you know Jared graduated in December!!! Go Jared!! I am so proud of him as is the rest of the family.

Jared started school a few months after we moved back to Illinois, oh I think almost 5 years ago. Why not, he has the IVG & the GI Bill from 4 years being in the Navy.....that's enough to be proud of in itself. Anyway, it would have been crazy not to use this FREE money for school, so between his parents and me we did a pretty good job convincing him he needed to go to school!

He started out at SWIC in Belleville and obtained his Associates degree in Electronics Technology within a year, I think. He knew he wanted to further his education, just didn't know in what so he continued at SWIC doing general classes he knew he would need. A few months later he found this Outreach program through Scott Air Force Base & SIU Carbondale for people who work full time but want to get their bachelor's degree. I think he ended up starting this in August of 2006. This program was every other weekend Saturday & Sunday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., for a year and a half. He was already working full time, sometimes overtime and going to SWIC 3 to 4 days a week. It was a very hard decision to make for us as a family, but we both knew it would be stupid for him not to take advantage of it, so he did it! He did so well, he graduated Magna Cume Laud(second highest honors) and made the dean's list every semester. His grade point average was 3.75-3.8. Here we are a year and half later December 13, 2008, and Jared is a college graduate!! He now has his Bachelors degree in Industrial Technology from SIUC school of Engineering.

Jared encourages everyone to look into programs like this and regrets not doing this earlier in his life. He still did it and I am so PROUD!! He plans on going to get his Master's in August of 2009.....more power to him, and I will support him all the way!!