Veteran earns diploma after 62 years

Bob Tiffany’s wife of almost 62 years, Eva, is a graduate of North Central High School. So are their son, Mike and their grandchildren, Chad and Jennifer.

Now, at 81, Tiffany can finally say that he is a graduate of the school along with the rest of the family.

During North Central’s Veterans Day assembly on Friday, Tiffany decked out in a cap and gown in the gymnasium of the school. He finally received his diploma from Nancy Stowell, superintendent of Spokane Public Schools, while the students at North Central gave him a standing ovation and the choir sang the school fight song.

“I’m so nervous,” Eva Tiffany said before the ceremony. “But everyone has been so nice.”

After receiving his diploma, moving his tassel to the other side of his cap and saluting the American flag, Tiffany addressed the students.

“It’s been a long time for me to get this little piece of paper,” he told the crowd. “It’s very important to get your diploma.”

He then warned the students, “No dropouts.”

“I went through a war and made it all in one piece. I guess God was with me,” he said.

Tiffany didn’t get his diploma when he should have in 1944 at Renton (Wash.) High School. Instead he was drafted to fight in World War II.

He was able to get his diploma thanks to a Washington state law enacted in 2002 to allow World War II vets to receive their diplomas without taking any more classes. A similar law was passed in 2003 for Korean War vets.

Tiffany served in the Navy stationed in Bremerton, and was sent to Navy boot camp on Lake Pend Oreille at Farragut.

He remembers that there was 10 feet of snow on the ground and they had to march in it and ride boats on the cold water. It was during this time that he visited Spokane on leave. Eva was standing on a street corner waiting for a bus with some friends and he asked her where he could find the train station. She walked the sailor to the station; the Tiffanys said they haven’t had a bad day together since.

“We’ve had a very good life,” Eva said.

“We’ve been in love every day,” her husband added.

In fact, Tiffany was so head-over-heels in love with Eva that he ran off with her to get married. The Navy didn’t know where he was, and Tiffany’s mother wasn’t about to tell them.

Tiffany spent 15 days in the brig and was busted in rank down to seaman first class on his return.

He served in the Pacific on the USS Salamaua. On Jan. 13, 1945, the aircraft carrier was hit by a kamikaze. The plane hit the next compartment over from Tiffany and he was thrown back into a wall. He said he was very stiff and sore next day but didn’t have a bruise on him. A second plane was shot down in time to keep it from hitting the carrier. They lost 15 men that day and more than 800 sailors were wounded.

When the war was over and Tiffany returned to the United States, he worked as a truck driver for 47 years, mostly for Wallace-Colville Motor Freight. He then offered to help out a friend for a week at Jobbers Freight Service. He stayed on with them for another five years.

“Now he’s retired,” Eva said.

But he still keeps busy. He’s the historian of the Salamaua. He’s the vice president of his retired Teamsters union and works out at the gym four days a week. He’s been to reunions at Farragut for the last 12 years and often attends reunions of the Salamaua.

“Tiffany first heard about the law to get his diploma from his sister, Marguerite Brown, 85. He filled out the paperwork, but it still took another year and a half to finally receive the diploma, since his former school district had trouble locating his records after all those years.

He plans to hang the diploma on the wall in a room where he keeps tabs on his friends from his Navy days. That’s also where he keeps a picture his granddaughter painted from a photograph of him as a young man, and another painting of his ship.

Among the speakers at the Veterans Day assembly was Jeremy Affeldt, a pitcher for the Colorado Rockies and a graduate of Northwest Christian School. He spoke to the students about dreaming big and surrounding themselves with people who will support those dreams.

Affeldt was very excited to see Tiffany get his diploma.

“Our military personnel put a lot of dreams on hold to protect this country,” he told the students.

In Tiffany’s case, that dream came true after 63 years.