Following dad’s advice

Journey to reach commencement platform took 52 years

Gene Inman was a man of few words, but he always had good advice.

The words he imparted to his daughter, Susan (Inman) Thelen continue to bear fruit decades later. One of those messages was “Always finish what you started.” With her college diploma in hand, the Sioux Falls resident can say she has done that. Thelen enrolled at South Dakota State in fall 1969, and she fist bumped President Barry Dunn as she crossed the commencement stage May 8, 2021.

The 52-year span set her apart from her fellow graduates. So did the two grandchildren as well as her husband and daughter who helped her celebrate the occasion.

Thelen grew up in Hot Springs, where her father was a rancher and a barber. Her mother, Violet, was a homemaker and a ranch hand. Thelen participated in cheerleading, rode horses and was in 4-H. That’s how she met Jani Briggs, daughter of then-SDSU President Hilton M. Briggs. Thelen hadn’t thought about college, but Jani (Briggs) Remmele ’73 gave Thelen a call and asked her to room with her at State.

They lived in Young Hall. Thelen, still 17 when she started classes, pursued art, joined the SDSU cheer squad and met Tom Thelen ’72/M.S. ’76, a junior civil engineering major from Madison.

First comes marriage

By her junior year, Thelen had reduced her course load in order to serve as Miss South Dakota. In the summer between her junior and senior year, Susan and Tom became Mr. and Mrs. Thelen. At that time, Tom was pursuing a master’s degree as well as serving as cadet commander for the U.S. Air Force ROTC wing at SDSU.

But he was soon transferred to the base at Minot, North Dakota, and life took over.

“A year after we got married, we had a little girl, then another girl a couple of years later,” said Thelen, who has three children and 12 grandchildren. After 3 ½ years in Minot, Tom Thelen started with Plains Engineering in Rapid City while the couple lived in Hot Springs. 

“I managed to get another year of college in at Chadron State. I drove an hour each way from Hot Springs to Chadron three times a week with a friend. It was difficult with two little ones not in school,” Thelen said. 

After three years, Plains Engineering was purchased by HWS Engineering in Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Thelens were transferred. “In Lincoln, I said ‘I’ll see what it would take to finish at UNL.’ I would have needed to take a huge amount of classes. I spent the next 30 years thinking, “Oh, I’ll get back sometime,” Thelen said. 

Never too late to go back

Her husband retired in 2017, and they moved to Lake Madison, and Thelen again started talking about returning to college.

“In 2018, Tom was pushing me to go see what it would take to graduate,” Thelen said. What she found out was with 20 credits, Thelen could graduate with a Bachelor of General Studies degree. Because she had failed algebra in 1969, Thelen needed a math class. In fall 2018, she took quantitative literacy and aced it. “Hey, I think I can do this,” Thelen told herself.

By taking one course per semester, she made her dad—and others in the family—proud.

Thelen had lived much of the content, which included borrowing, credit and interest rates. In Lincoln, she worked at a bank and at Farm Credit Administration, where SDSU alum and branch manager Dana Dykhouse ’79 interviewed her.

The degree required a capstone project, which was a senior-level writing course. “I hadn’t written anything in 50 years and even then, it wasn’t a research paper. This was similar to a mini-thesis.” Her topic centered on her vocation as a self-employed artist, specifically the business end of it, which she admitted was a weakness.

“My premise is higher education should require entrepreneurial classes. Schools don’t do a good job of teaching you how to promote yourself or do the business end,” she said.

Living example for granddaughters

She said her entire family was supportive of her return to school.

“The grandkids were the most excited. They wanted to I know what I was doing. I had to post photos of the work I was doing. My mom, who is 95 and still lives in Hot Springs, was excited,” Thelen said.

While having the degree may be useful when entering juried art shows, Thelen said she mostly completed her degree because “we have nine granddaughters. I didn’t want any of them to say, when things get tough, ‘I’m going to quit. Grandma didn’t graduate, and she did OK.’ My father taught me to finish what I started.”

Now that Thelen can say she is a full-fledged alum, she is looking forward to her next celebration—her 70th birthday party Oct. 3.

– Dave Graves