‘I Never Did Get to High School’ By King E. Durkee y most memorable experience at Weber College was getting in. I was on my way to work at then Hill Field early one morning when I passed the old Weber College gymnasium. There was quite a line of people. I was curious and simply got in the line. The next thing I knew I was signing up to attend college. | was 24 years old and had never been to high school. Nobody asked me about high school when I registered. Not too long after the term began, representatives of the armed services came to school and I joined the Army. As the term went on, vari- ous groups — sailors in the Navy, the Marines — were called to active duty. Finally it was the turn of the men who had joined the Army. Just before we were to depart, Dr. Aldous Dixon, a professor at Weber College, received a communication from the Army ordering me and about six others to remain in school as pre-med students. When the school year came to an end, I asked Dr. Dixon what we should do, since Weber was not holding summer school. The answer was that we were to continue in school for the summer. Utah State Agricultural College (as it was known in those days) offered a full year of organic chemistry in one concentrated summer quarter. I took it. After another year at Weber, I graduated in 1944 and asked Dr. Dixon what to do next. He contacted the Army and was told that I should continue taking classes to complete my pre-med requirements. Brigham Young University was offering a concentrated course of physics in one summer quarter. | took it. Then regular sessions started again in the fall. I had been accepted at the University of Utah College of Medicine, but not until a later date. With time on my hands, I took courses at the U of U law school and got a job as a newspaper reporter on the Salt Lake Tribune. When it was time for me to enter medical school, I got a call from the registrar’s office. “Mr. Durkee, you’re scheduled to enter medical school here next week and we want to bring our records up to date. We don’t have a record of where you graduated from high school.” I said, “I’m not surprised. I didn’t go to high school.” “Not at all?” “Not a day.” I discussed with the registrar the situation many young men found themselves in during The Great Depression. The upshot was, I was required to sit down one afternoon and take high school equivalency exams. | passed them easily. I went to medical school, but hated it. My heart ached to return to being a reporter. After a year, I told the dean I was leaving medical college to be a reporter. He offered to pay for a degree in psychiatry if I stayed, but he also said that he thought it was smart to do the thing you Weber State University Ogden, UT 84408-3701 FORWARDING AND ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED King E. Durkee really wanted to do in life. I went back, not to the Salt Lake Tribune, but to the Deseret News. I stayed there 10 years, then accepted a job as managing editor of the San Diego Union. I subsequently became editor and then executive editor of that newspaper. I am still employed by the organization, Copley Newspapers. This is my 5Oth year as a journalist. I have devoted much of my time to public service, includ- ing four terms as president and vice president of the Board of Governors of 204 California community colleges. No, I never did get to high school, but thanks to my Weber College experience, I ended up attending four universities, a school of law, a school of medicine, and becoming editor of a major American newspaper. US POSTAGE PAID Non-Profit Permit No. 151 Ogden, Utah