graduate_Tracy_Depp

Growing up as the child of a single mother in Bowling Green, Demetrius King knew she couldn’t afford college. So, she joined the U.S. Army to help pay her way through school.

When her own daughter was in high school, King, now a single mother herself, urged the girl to make top grades. Without a scholarship, she knew she couldn’t afford to send her daughter to college.

Years later, mother and daughter have earned their master’s degrees at the same time, and they walked the graduation line together. The women credit each other for their academic accomplishments.

“She played a big part in me going back to school, getting my bachelor’s, getting my associate’s,” King said of her daughter, Tracy Depp. “Even when she was in high school, she’d help me with papers.”

 Both women graduated Saturday from Argosy University in Nashville. King earned her master’s in mental health counseling, and Depp got her master’s in business management.

King, who moved back to Bowling Green in August, hopes to open a private counseling practice here. Depp, who lives in Nashville, plans to open a retail clothing store in Bowling Green.

“I’m more proud of her than myself,” Depp said. “School comes easy to me because it was pushed when I was younger.”

Depp calls her mother a “stickler” for education, and King agrees that she pushed academics when her children were young, and she continues to do so.

“All the while she was growing up, I instilled education in her,” King said. “That’s so important to me, education. It’s just so wonderful.”

King didn’t have the same educational opportunities her daughter had, but she worked and persevered to make education a possibility for herself. Out of three children, King was the only one who graduated high school, and she didn’t stop there.

When she graduated from Bowling Green High School in 1981, King wanted to go to college, but she couldn’t afford it. She joined the Army so her college would be paid for. Seventeen years later, she retired from the military after working in logistics and administration for the Army Reserve and the National Guard.

During that time, she had two children and also got a job with the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville, where she retired as a court officer in 2009. King was fascinated by criminal justice since childhood – she worked at the old Warren County Jail during high school.

Because she was raising two children on her own – Depp and a younger son – it took her four years to finish her associate’s degree at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, Tenn. When she graduated in 1995, she began working toward a bachelor’s in criminal justice and social science at Tennessee State University.

But that proved to be a drawn-out process as her children grew and began high school. She stopped taking college courses to help her children through school, she said.

When her daughter graduated from college in 2004, King was inspired to finish college herself. She had two semesters left.

“I did go back and finish my bachelor’s after, what, 10 years?” she said. “But I was determined to finish my bachelor’s.”

When King decided to pursue her master’s in 2007, she had to persuade her daughter to attend graduate school as well. Depp wanted a longer break from school and was reluctant, but her mother finally convinced her. They enrolled together at the same university.

“I wanted a break; I wanted to come home,” Depp said. “But she was already going, so she kind of talked me into it.”

 Depp’s story is different from her mother’s. Growing up, Depp knew she had no choice but to make good grades. Her mother demanded she go to college, but the only way was to get a scholarship. When she graduated from high school, Depp received a full scholarship to the University of Tennessee and finished college in four years.

“She always stressed the importance of education; she always read to me,” Depp said. “We had no money, so I had to work hard to get good grades.”

 Now, Depp works for a nonprofit agency in Nashville called Women On Maintaining Education and Nutrition, an organization that helps the homeless community and those with HIV and AIDS.

King technically graduated last semester, she said, but she waited to walk the graduation line so she could be with her daughter. King is celebrating another academic achievement in her family – after years of prodding, her 26-year-old son entered college and just finished his first semester with straight A’s, she said.

King praises her children for their determination. But Depp attributes her success to her mother, a woman who pushed her children and herself to get an education – even when the odds were against them. “She stuck to it despite everything,” Depp said. “She set a great example.”