Oshawa graduate receives diploma decades after leaving high school

An Oshawa, Ont., man is still pinching himself after he was able to walk the stage last month to accept his high school diploma.

It’s been decades since he left G.L. Roberts C.V.I. without his diploma in hand. And thanks to help from friends and the former principal of the school, it was an extra special experience for 65-year-old Mike Pantelleresco.

“Almost 50 years ago,” he says, “(in) 1977 I left this school to take a job as a butcher.”

Because he was a student back then, he was enlisted to help with the school’s 50-year celebration. But for all those years, something was missing.

Dawn White, the current principal of the school, was part of the committee for the school’s milestone as well. She says it was a surprise to learn the news from Pantelleresco.

“Mike says, ‘I never finished my diploma,'” White says.

“That’s so sad right? He had to do what he had to do, but wanted it.”

Pantelleresco says leaving school was a tough decision to make, but something that made sense to him at the time.

“I was offered a full-time job at the grocery store, and I wanted to take it before my friends who graduated would get it,” he said.

Back then, an offer like that would have been promising for a student coming out of school. The Oshawa man moved on to work at the GM plant in Oshawa and had a promising career, but he always wondered what it would have been like to graduate.

“A lot of regret, because my friends were graduating and I wasn’t there,” he said. “I knew I was missing out I should have been there.”

When White heard his story, she kicked things into high gear and helped him on his path to graduation.

“She got ahold of Sarah MacDonald, who runs (Durham Continuing Education) here in Oshawa. They got me set up for courses and schools. And Sarah got me set up for college.”

Fast-forward four months of hard work, and he found success — with a special guest. His former principal Chuck Powers handed over the diploma.

“I thought it was a unique experience,” said Powers, the founding principal of the school.

“It’s not every principal that has the opportunity 50 years later.”

Pantelleresco says it was great to get on stage decades after he left, but even better for the response he received.

“I didn’t think it was going to be that much of an uproar,” he said. “There was quite an applause. It made me feel like one of the family again.”

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White says it’s her hope his perseverance will inspire others.

“I think it was a good way to indicate and show everybody that when you have a dream, it doesn’t matter how long it takes. You can fulfill that dream.”