Issue date: 8/13/09 Section: NEWS

Many students have a 5- or 10-year plan, but what are the golden years like for UNT alumni?

Billy Kellum, a 72-year-old retired pilot, often meets friends at McDonalds for an early morning, 38-cent cup of coffee. He goes to an exercise class at Seniors in Motion and often attends Bible class - a different life from the book-filled one he once led as a student of industrial arts in education. Kellum received his bachelor's in 1959 from what was then called North Texas State College.

Fifty years later, a lot more than the name of the university has changed. The landscape has been filled with buildings such as Chestnut, Legends and Honors Hall, which did not exist in 1959. Kellum walked under the shadow of the clock tower, but he never knew Discovery Park or the UNT Dallas Campus.

Though, he proudly wore green and white, Kellum never witnessed the firing of Boomer the cannon at a football game or heard chants of "Mean Green!" Boomer was first fired in 1970, and the nickname "Mean Green" was not adopted until the late 1960s, according to UNT's Web site.

Paying for school

While traditions change, some things stay the same. Like many students today, Kellum worked part-time at an upholstery store while attending classes. ROTC took up much of any spare time he had left. He married while still in school, and his wife, Laura Kellum, also attended UNT for a while. Life was sometimes difficult, especially when it came to money.

"We had to economize-be careful what we spent," Kellum said. "We were paying everything ourselves."

James Addington, 71, a fellow member of ROTC and another graduate of UNT, remembers how well Kellum coped with being married while attending school.

"Nothing bothers that guy," said Addington, also a retired pilot. "He handled it about as well as anyone could handle it."

Kellum concedes that things were not always easy, but he refused to quit.

"I never considered stopping," he said. "I was going to graduate no matter what."

Laura Kellum was equally determined to hold her family together and sacrificed a college education to do so. While Kellum continued pursuing a degree, she stopped taking classes and worked in the college's library full-time.

"We just managed," she said of the added stress while her husband finished college.

Looking back, Mrs. Kellum would not change much.

"I might have gone ahead and finished school, but other than that, I wouldn't change anything," she said.

According to her husband, Mrs. Kellum has much to be proud of. Their first child, a son, was born during Kellum's senior year. Dr. Michael Kellum, also a UNT alumnus, now has a family practice in Allen, Texas.

The wide world

After graduation, Kellum chose to use his secondary education from ROTC instead of becoming a teacher.

He served in the Air Force for seven years, and during this time, his daughter Marcia Kellum was born. After the Air Force, Kellum and his family moved back to his native Denton, and he became a commercial airline pilot for Delta.

Work and family collided at times. Kellum twice chose to commute, from New Orleans and Atlanta, rather than disrupt his children's lives.

"I was trying to keep my family stable so that they could stay at the same school," he said.

After 31 years at Delta, Kellum retired. He and his wife, now married 52 years, attended their grandson's wedding on Aug. 8.

Kellum still stops by the campus these days to attend an occasional performance or sporting event, and he has some advice for the students who now walk UNT's sidewalks.

"Do everything you can to finish and graduate," he said. "Not only the basic degree but advanced degrees as well."

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