On Sunday, two Dorian Joyners donned their caps and gowns to graduate from Morehouse College in Georgia, where the commencement speech was given by President Obama.
In 1988, Dorian Joyner Sr. was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta. When he took some time off, he didn’t think it would be 22 years.
But after becoing a senior analyst in data and finance for several major corporations, including a law firm, he decided that enough time had passed and it was time to return, so in 2010 he approached his son, who was currently a student at Morehouse, about his plans to finish his degree.
“I just told him to repeat the question one more time and repeat the answer one more time because I thought I heard a different answer,” Dorian Joyner Jr. told ABCNews.com with a laugh. “I thought he was coming to visit friends. He was coming back as a student.”
Joyner Sr. had already gone back to school in 2006 to get an associate’s degree in paralegal studies to make sure that he wanted to invest time and money into law school. When he went back to Morehouse, even though he dressed “younger” and carried a backpack to fit in with the other students, he was largely avoided—until his first group project when his classmates, who were the same age as his son, realized how good he was at giving presentations thanks to his 20-plus years of business experience. After that, he was just another one of the guys.
On campus, Joyner Jr. took to keeping an eye on his dad and looking out for him. “He acts like he’s my father on campus,” Joyner Sr. said. “He’ll say, ‘Did you get your class? Did you register?’ He makes sure to check up on everything.”
“When we saw each other, we’d greet each other, talk to each other and see how the other was doing in classes,” Joyner Jr. said. “Sometimes, people would walk past us when we were talking and say, ‘Wow, you two look just alike.'”
Their familial resemblance and big age difference certainly shocked some professors. Though the two never had a class together, they did share some of the same teachers, who would do a double-take when they saw that they had a different Dorian Joyner in their class than they had previously taught.
They took care of each other in school, and at Sunday’s graduation ceremony, where President Obama gave an incredibly personal speech to the historically black, all-male campus, they were both very proud of each other.
“It’s just going to be an exciting time all around,” Joyner Sr. said. “It makes me proud. I watched him struggle through school and he’s my firstborn, so it really makes me proud.”
“I’m definitely proud of him,” Joyner Jr. said in turn. “I’m proud of him as a man to go back and fulfill a degree. A lot of people his age have a family, have a career and really don’t have the time or finance to go back to school. The fact that he took the opportunity to find financing and time to go back to school while maintaining a social life and a family is very astounding. That’s hard to do.”
Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP
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