"The image of those days and nights on the road will stick with me forever," Mary Kay says, "but it will always remind me of the women who rode with me. What really mattered to us during those drives were the courses that lay ahead that day and the tests or lectures or discussions that would engage us.

"We talked all the way up, and all the way back," she says. "There wasn't time to worry about the weather or what it would do to the road."

And her degree -- a bachelor of science in public health -- is already paying off dividends. On August 3, Mary Kay, now 52, will move from a part-time to a full-time position with the Crow Wing County Public Health Department, a career move that required college-level certification in public health.

"Without the degree, I was not qualified for the position," she says, despite nearly 30 years of nursing experience.

In that time she and her husband, Robert Spizzo, owner of Breezy Point Resort, have raised three children, one of whom -- 22-year-old Marisa -- graduated from the University of Minnesota a few days after her mother shook hands with the president of BSU and strolled away with her latest achievement.

Mary Kay, a Breezy resident since 1977, was graduated from the Rochester School of Nursing as a registered nurse, a career she has practiced off and on since 1966. That's when the American Nursing Association issued a position paper describing diploma nurses as "technical" rather than "professional."

"My desire to return to college for a four-year degree started then," she says. "The timing was finally right in 1994 when the mother in me decided my children could handle it. They have all been very supportive of my decision to return to school."

For the past 11 years, Mary Kay has been a part-time "professional" nurse with the county's Women, Infants, Children Program. Serving young and inexperienced expectant mothers, WIC is one of the most successful education and training programs around, and Mary Kay will turn her full-time attention to its clients.

"I am an advocate for good health in general and the well-being of newborn children in particular," she says. "Good health requires a holistic approach, and inexperienced mothers need to know about the effects of nutrition and diet, preventative care, and good mental and social health practices on the well-being of their kids.

"When I sit down with my young mothers, I try to assess everything that's going on their children's lives," she says. "That's how I can help them the most."

Her academic approach focused on domestic violence, and her classroom study took her into the protective confines of the Women's Shelter of Brainerd, where she now serves on the board of advisers.

With only a professional career and family duties to keep her busy, Mary Kay is expanding her role with the shelter as a public speaker.

"When you think about public health issues, domestic violence is right up there near the top," she says.

Her college pursuits overlapped those of two of her three children. Marisa enrolled at the U in 1995, graduating this year with a degree in finance from the Carlson School of Business. Twenty-year-old David will begin his sophomore year at the U in the fall. Tom, 27, is a chemist with a pharmaceutical company at Baudette. He holds a degree in biology and chemistry from the U of M at Duluth.

"Graduation Day was my day in the sun," she says. "It was such an incredible event, not because I got the credentials I needed, although they were important. But because I had accomplished what I had set out to do. The   feelings that snapped through me when I received that degree are still

indescribable."

She was joined on that graduation stage by her traveling mates: Mary Rono of Crosby, Jocelyn Odash of Brainerd, Michelle Erickson of Pine River, Yvonne Switajewski of Pine River, all working nurses at various area medical units.

The women are part of the long-running national trend that has reshaped the ideas of lifelong learning. Adults are returning to college in droves to finish what they started years ago or to fill a gap in their career credentials. BSU has responded by offering highly flexible schedules for working and retired adults.

One of Mary Kay's fellow graduates was a 75-year-old teacher's aide, "who thought she'd be better at her job by getting an elementary education degree. The audience roared with approval when she walked across the stage.

"She showed all of us that you're never too old to pursue your dreams," Mary Kay says.

But the pathway can be a minefield of academic hurdles, she says, including the rejection by BSU of all but 89 of her nursing credits. With 196 needed for the degree, that meant a long row to hoe: 15 to 20 credits per quarter and 8 a.m. class starts. Talk about an endurance run.