Texas Wesleyan University graduated more than 200 students on Saturday at the MacGorman Chapel on the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary campus in Fort Worth. 

The keynote speaker, state Sen. Beverly Powell, said education can be empowering to not only the graduate, but also the graduate’s family for generations to come.

“There are Texas Wesleyan graduates everywhere that have paved the way for your success,” said Powell, who earned her undergraduate degree at Wesleyan in 1992 and her MBA in 1999. 

She also challenged graduates to use their degrees to help the community and mankind

After the ceremony, Paul Kalmbacher said his former wife, Donetha M. Reinhardt, earned her bachelor’s degree in science while raising her six children and several grandchildren. She will now pursue a teaching job.

“She has been pursuing this degree for a number of years now,” Kalmbacher said. “You could definitely say it was not on the four-year plan.”

Earning a degree at Wesleyan was something that assistant men’s soccer coach Dejan Milosevic did not think about until he retired from professional soccer several years ago. He had played for the Dallas Sidekicks.

Once he returned to Wesleyan to coach, a counselor told him he was only a few classes short of his degree.

“This is something that they can never take away from me or anybody else that completed their journey today, and it is a wonderful thing,” said Milosevic, who received his bachelor of arts degree.

In his speech to the graduates, Dr. Christopher Ohan said an ice storm threatened the day of his undergraduate graduation, and he felt the storm would rob him of the chance to walk across the stage.

But all he remembers now is the ice storm; the rest is a blur. The importance of college, he said, is how it teaches you to think.

“We have not taught you want to think,” he said, “but we have more importantly taught you how to think.”