By Maybelline Somoza | Talon Staff
Tallahassee Community College student Kenneth Frisbie, 90, is in his last semester at TCC and wants to be a paralegal when he grows up.
He will earn an Associate of Science degree in Paralegal/Legal Studies this May. It will be his second degree from TCC. In 2011, he graduated with an Associate of Arts degree with honors.
Not only does he have two degrees from TCC, but Tallahassee’s junior college has played a role in educating four generations of the Frisbie family. Two of his children and two of his grandchildren have earned degrees from TCC. His daughter-in-law is a TCC graduate, and his great granddaughter is a TCC student who is in her second semester. Another great grandchild is planning on attending this fall.
It has been 52 years since Frisbie first attended college. In 1949, he enrolled at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he studied a year of pre-med before joining the army and being a paratrooper in the Korean War. He served for two years at Ashiya Air Force Base located on the island of Kyushu, Japan.
After leaving the army, he moved to different cities including Fort Benning, Georgia, and Phenix City, Alabama, until he finally settled down in Tallahassee with his then-wife and raised five children. Frisbie owned and operated a restaurant in Apalachee Parkway called Fat Man’s BBQ which landed him the nickname of “The Fatman.”
Prior to his first enrollment at TCC, Frisbie had attended a few courses at Florida State University in Suicide Prevention training and later worked an emergency hotline for people that needed counseling until his retirement at the age of 71.
After retiring, Frisbie had a discussion with his eldest daughter, Angela Linton, who is the assistant to the Dean of Student Success & Retention at TCC. He wanted to know what to do with his newly found free time.
“College was the pathway he wanted to go,” said Linton in a recent email. “[I] told him to be in my office on Monday. He did come to my office and we worked together getting his old records, and in 2002 at the age of 71 dad enrolled in college for the second time of his life.”
TCC’s Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness Dr. Lei Wang said in a recent phone call that in the past decade TCC has had nine students, including Frisbie, over the age of 90 and one student aged 101.
With only one class left before graduating for a second time, Frisbie remains optimistic and positive. His last class is Law Office Management taught by TCC Professor of Applied Ethics and Legal Studies Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda.
Vasilinda said Frisbie has been doing well in his online class and has submitted excellent work on time and without any difficulty.
“I don’t have any challenges that give me any griefs at all,” said Frisbie. “I’ve turned in four assignments and I’ve gotten the highest number on each one of them.”
Vasilinda said Frisbie is both “a gentleman and a scholar.”“Ken is living proof that cheerfulness is a virtue,” Vasilinda said in an email. “That being upbeat, useful to others, and constantly finding new purpose in life will allow a long, good life, well lived.”
