Mother and son graduate from same college on same day

By Noah Cornelius

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    OSHKOSH, Wisconsin (WGBA) — Not many people can say they graduated college alongside their mom. But a graduate from Fox Valley Technical College can.

More than 500 graduating students from Fox Valley Technical College packed the Kolf Center in Oshkosh, ready to take their diplomas and start the next chapter of their lives. But for two graduates, there are family ties.

Timothy Ozminkowski and his mother, Maureen Fogarty, both graduated from Fox Valley Technical College.

At the same time.

“He beat me by .2 on the grade point average. Now I owe him $500!” says Fogarty. She and her son had a running competition to see who could finish college with the higher grade-point average.

“I am just… living in the moment and loving every second of this with him and trying not to embarrass him at the same time.”

Timothy’s college journey started right after high school, taking English at UW-Stevens Point before transferring.

Maureen’s path, meanwhile, took her down a different road.

“I always wanted to be a nurse, every since I was 12 years old,” she reminisced. “But, coming out of high school, I met my husband at the time and we got married. So, the timing was never right.”

Because Timothy completed his degree online while Maureen took classes in person, the the two say they didn’t know they’d be graduating at the same time, at first.

“It was, probably, after… the first year when I realized we could graduate together,” says Ozminkowski.

“All of a sudden, we were like ‘Wait a minute… We’re going to graduate at the same time!’ So it was kind of really funny when it came together,” Fogarty laughed.

Now, the mother-son duo is donning their cap and gowns, walking across the stage, and completing the journey.

Which is now forever intertwined by the love shared between mother and son.

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