Constable: 70 years to earn college degree

All this fuss for a guy starting college in 1944 and earning his degree 70 years later is undeserved, insists World War II veteran and recent college graduate Chris Kallimani of Mount Prospect.

“Why is a procrastinator being treated like a conquering hero?” the 90-year-old Kallimani says, shaking his head.

And yet, that's Kallimani in his “Class of 2014” cap and gown being hailed as the “oldest-ever graduate” by University of Redlands President Ralph W. Kuncl. The school has written stories and posted an online video about Kallimani's accomplishment.

“I have dedicated myself to doing everything I can to make it possible for students to finish the college career they begin. Chris just happens to be the most heartwarming of all those journeys toward the finish,” Kuncl says.

“We wanted to celebrate it as an example of perseverance and pursuing your dreams, and he kept saying he was just a procrastinator,” says Jeff Martinez, Redlands athletic director and a professor who helped Kallimani graduate from the school he fell in love with at first sight in 1944.

“Everybody could smell this beautiful aroma, and no one knew what it was. It was the orange blossoms' smell. The place was full of orange trees,” Kallimani says, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath. “I can smell it now.”

He didn't know a soul at the small, private college halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, nestled in the shadow of the San Bernardino Mountains.

“People couldn't have been nicer,” Kallimani says of Redlands. “Everybody talked to you. They called it their 'Hello Spirit.'”

It took some good fortune to get Kallimani to Redlands. One of nine kids born to George and Katina Kallimani in the coal mining camp of Van Houten, New Mexico, Kallimani lived for a bit in the “Greek Town” section, but he grew up alongside Germans, Italians, Serbs, Slavs, Mexicans and other immigrants who populated coal mining towns in Colfax County.

Kallimani's grandfather was killed in those mines. His father escaped the mines by taking a job as the proprietor of the camp community center and working as a janitor at the grade school. As a boy, Chris Kallimani would finish his classes, spend the next three hours helping his dad clean the school and then work in the clubhouse at night, handing over a beer or selling a loose cigarette for a penny.

In 1942, when Kallimani graduated from high school in nearby Raton, World War II cast uncertainty over everything. Intending to get his college education at some point, Kallimani left to live with an older sister in Gary, Indiana, where he took a construction job building a plant for the war effort. Plans changed, the plant was canceled and Kallimani returned home and enrolled in the University of New Mexico in January 1943.

His high school buddy, Harry Kinney, who later became a very popular mayor of Albuquerque, encouraged Kallimani to take a Navy officers' training test. Kallimani did well, and he was accepted into the V-12 Navy College Training Program and sent to the University of Redlands, where he thrived before finishing his supply officers' training at a Navy facility on the campus of Harvard University.

“I can't remember if it was one week before the war ended or one week after the war ended, but I was sent to the Philippines,” says Kallimani, who worked on a supply base on the island of Samar at the end of 1945. When he returned home near the end of 1946, he re-enrolled at Redlands in January 1947. He played guard on the Redlands football team, but didn't make the trip to the Pineapple Bowl on Jan. 1, 1948.

“I wasn't good enough,” says Kallimani, who ended up getting something better than a trip to Hawaii. During the holiday break, he went on a date with Donnie Rushing, who worked at Mutual Orange Distributors, was about to be crowned Miss Redlands, and would become Kallimani's wife.

In the summer before his final classes and graduation, Kallimani received a telegram from R.E. “Mack” Reynolds, a Redlands professor who had recommended Kallimani for a job in accounting with a steel company near Redlands. Kallimani took that job and left school. He married Rushing on Thanksgiving Day in 1950 in Las Vegas.

Kallimani moved up the career ladder, working for Kaiser Steel in Napa, California, and later for DeSoto, a chemical and paint company in Berkeley. In 1962, his promotion to assistant corporate controller at DeSoto headquarters in Des Plaines required him to move with his wife and four young children.

Considered a member of the Class of 1948, Kallimani returned to Redlands in 1998 for the 50th reunion. He wasn't haunted by his lack of a college degree, “but it was always in the back of my mind,” Kallimani admits, recalling how he'd fill out applications, list his schooling, but have to leave the degree section blank. “It always did bother me.”

Making their home in Mount Prospect, the family coped with tragedy when the couple's older daughter, Diane, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She managed to graduate from Prospect High School with her class of 1975, and died about 6 p.m. on July 9, 1975. Donnie Kallimani died at that same time on the same day in 2009.

During a 2013 guys' getaway to California to visit relatives, Kallimani wanted to show his sons, Jim and John, the university. “It's a sight you don't forget,” says Kallimani, who still has a black-and-white photograph of the school's chapel framed by palm trees and the mountains. The Kallimanis visited Redlands with his wife's brother, John Rushing, who was a Hall-of-Fame running back at the school, and Rushing's son Joel, who also played football for the Bulldogs.

“Maybe I should go upstairs and see what I need to graduate,” Kallimani quipped as they passed the Administration Building. “I wasn't serious.”

That idea moved closer to reality after a chance meeting with President Kuncl, a conversation with associate registrar Deborah DeLeon and another chance meeting with athletic director Martinez.

“I just happened to stand up and look out the window,” says Martinez, who went outside to chat with the Rushings and soon learned Kallimani's story. The 1947 football team was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003, and a plaque was made for every player.

“I went to the storage room, found his and caught up with him at his fraternity house,” Martinez says, recalling the moment he presented Kallimani with his plaque at Kappa Sigma Sigma. “He started crying, and I started crying. It was really cool.”

After a couple weeks of digging through archives, DeLeon discovered Kallimani was just three units, or one class, short of his degree.

“He didn't want to just be given a degree. He wanted to do something to earn it,” Martinez remembers. Working with his grown children, Martinez and psychology professor Fred Rabinowitz, the school developed an area of study for Kallimani to complete his degree requirements.

“He sat at that table writing in notebooks and editing,” says daughter Kathryn Kallimani, pointing to a table off the Kallimani kitchen in Mount Prospect.

“They wanted to know how I evolved. It really turned out to be a challenge,” says Kallimani, who spent four months recording profound moments in his life, and earning the right to walk across the stage with his much younger peers during the 2014 commencement ceremony in the school's outdoor amphitheater.

“It was exciting to watch my dad graduate at the University of Redlands, in the town where he met my mom, and began his career in business,” John Kallimani says. “Our mom would have been very proud of his achievement, as were we.”

The graduation proved to be “another example of my father … inspiring others with his story,” Jim Kallimani says.

The credit, Chris Kallimani says, belongs to everyone who helped him along his journey, beginning with his teachers in Van Houten.

“I've always bragged about my teachers. You get a lot of help in your life. You don't get through it alone,” he says, using the phrase “just a little nod from God” to describe fortunate breaks in his life. “There's always someone around to help you.”

He even picked up a little something from all of his fellow new college graduates in the Class of 2014.

“I'm looking for a job,” Kallimani says. “Have you got one?”