Dewitt "Dewey" Henry's motivation for leaving MSU 52 years ago also was his motivation to return, finish his degree, and graduate Saturday - his wife.

"I met this young woman who was madly in love with me and wouldn't leave me alone until I married her," the 73-year-old said, laughing about the reason he left MSU in 1950, just short of completing his degree.

His wife, Margaret Henry, clarified the reason for him.

"There wasn't money for the last semester," she said. "You just don't think ahead at that age."

Henry, now a senior, will receive his bachelor's degree in landscape architecture at 10 a.m. Saturday at Breslin Center after completing his final 12 credits. Henry said his children and his wife gave him the encouragement he needed to complete his lifelong goal of going back to school.

"It was my family, really, who said, 'What do you want to do with the rest of your life?'" he said.

Henry, an assistant executive in Wayne County, will be retiring in January and said he wanted to go back to school for his own satisfaction.

"Certainly I'm not trying to build a résumé," he said. "I hope people realize you're never done with education. You can continue on until death's door opens up."

But he said there's another reason he went back.

"I'm also hoping to send a message to my grandkids," he said.

Instead of commuting to MSU to take classes, he worked on a project with the director of the landscape architecture program, Warren Rauhe.

"For him to come back and do it is a statement," Rauhe said. "It says that accomplishing something, I don't care what it is, is important."

Henry said Rauhe helped him a lot in finishing his final project, a study on constructing a facility without hurting the environment.

"He understood that after 52 years, I might be a little rusty," he said, laughing. "Everyone up there made it so easy for me. I guess they think since I'm a senior citizen, they have to be nice to me."

His always-kidding personality makes it easy for people to work with him in his professional career, said co-worker Tim Johnson.

"He's one of the most creative people to work with," said Johnson, director of marketing for the state's most populous county. "Despite his age, he's really open to new ideas and is really great to work for."

Johnson, a 1981 MSU graduate, said he highly respects Henry for going back to get his degree so late in life.

"He's really attacked this project with a lot of passion. He wanted to do it right," he said. "It really meant something to him, the diploma, after all these years."

And in those years, the university has become a different place, Henry said.

"The curriculum is very different," he said. "And I hardly recognize at least half of the campus."

Finishing his degree has encouraged his wife to consider doing it as well.

"It's motivating to me," Margaret Henry said. "He's having so much fun with this, I'm thinking about going back to get a degree."

Henry's children insisted their father graduate in full cap and gown, he said.

"I think they're more excited about it than I am," he said.

Henry can count on having a fan club of friends and family at his graduation.

"Everybody wants to come to the graduation, and I can't wait," he said. "Even at my age, you still get excited about graduating."