A Graduating Senior

Despite a medical degree fromYale, West Linn’s William Adams goes back for his GED at age 83

By Dan Itel

The West Linn Tidings, Aug 13, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Eighty-three-year-old William Adams of West Linn waits to receive his high school diploma at Clackamas Community College’s June 11 graduation ceremony.

VERN UYETAKE / West Linn Tidings

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William Adams is a man of many titles.

Doctor. Former West Linn City Councilor. Water expert. World War II veteran.

And earlier this summer, Adams became a high school graduate — at the age of 83.

It would be easy to think that Adams’ most recent title would have to come before all those previous. But the 15-year West Linn resident took a round-about way to life before earning his GED from Clackamas Community College in a June 11 graduation ceremony.

“The only honest degree I’ve had up until now was my medical degree from Yale,” said Adams, who also goes by Bob.

This isn’t, however, a story about a scam artist who faked his way to Yale University and then to 22 years as the head of the laboratory at the Rose Medical Center in Denver, one of Colorado’s most respected hospitals. Adams grew up during a turbulent time, and things weren’t always done by the book.

And as a junior in high school in 1943, war was on the minds of all Americans.

“In those days, the sounds of war were looming on the horizon,” Adams said. “The handwriting was on the wall as far as the draft was concerned.”

After his junior year, Adams realized he had enough credits — through taking summer courses — to enter Baylor University the next year.

“I naively said to myself that if I had a year in college under my belt, I could get a better deal in the military,” he said.

But the draft hit Adams anyway, and in 1944 he entered the Navy.

After the war was over in 1945, Adams returned to college at Texas A&M University. He spent a year there in 1946, and once again realized he had the right amount of classes to enter Yale medical school. And the next fall, he enrolled at the Ivy League college.

“The general rules were pretty much overturned,” Adams said. “There was a lot of ad libing going on as far as entering this education field or that.”

And after three years at Yale, which included a year-long fellowship in the school’s physics department, Adams became a doctor.

Which brings the story to present tense and raises the question, why would Adams need his GED now?

He’s retired, served on the West Linn City Council from 2003 to 2004 and is currently on the citizen advisory board of the South Fork Water Board.

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