5 SEMO grads get A's all the way

In her toughest semester at Southeast Missouri State University, Marsha Walker considered dropping out of college to take care of her mother, who was hospitalized after a life-threatening car accident.

Walker's professors convinced her to stick it out. And even though her mother passed away during the week of final exams last spring, the Dexter, Mo., resident still passed all of her classes with straight A's.

Thirty-one years after graduating from Advance High School, Marsha Walker received a diploma last week from Southeast with a 4.0 grade point average and a business degree in accounting.

More than 60,000 students have graduated from Southeast in the past 130 years. Only 186 of those students, including Walker and four others this semester, have managed to do so with a perfect GPA.

Standing up with Walker last week as the 4.0 students were recognized during winter commencement ceremonies was Amy Mattes of Kelso, Mo., a 21-year-old education major who graduated from Southeast in three and a half years.

Mattes, a graduate of Notre Dame Regional High School, managed to keep her perfect GPA while working 32 hours a week at Dairy Queen and taking an average of 16 credit hours a semester.

"Each semester as I got my grades, in back of my mind I hoped I could keep that GPA," Mattes said. "But it wasn't something I knew I was going to get."

Mattes credits her husband, Ryan, and her parents with helping her do well in college.

"Even when I thought I was going crazy because there was too much to do, I had great support from my family," Mattes said. "This is something I can be proud of and later on tell my kids about it."

Although family support played a role, Marsha Walker has a different take on how she managed a 4.0.

"I'm fanatical, I guess," Walker said. "I worked with the idea of a perfect GPA in mind, but I didn't know if it could be accomplished. Sometimes I think it's just a luck-of-the-draw situation."

Walker, who began her college career as a nontraditional student in January 1999, found herself in a strange mother/friend relationship with her classmates, most of whom were the same age as her own children.

"I've got a few more wrinkles than they do," she said. "I was studying for college while my kids were studying for college."

Walker drove back and forth from her home in Dexter to Southeast while working part time. Her husband did a lot of laundry and dishes during the past five years.

"A college degree is something I've always wanted," Walker said. "But I didn't know if the 4.0 was attainable. I think you just have to have a certain mentality."

cclark@semissourian.com

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