EUREKA - While the largest graduating class ever wore black hats and flowing robes, some guests donned scarves, mittens and lap blankets at Eureka College's graduation ceremony Saturday.

Eureka President David Arnold told the crowd, "No thrills for the cautious," when he talked of his decision to keep the ceremony outside despite the 46-degree temperature, threatening clouds, distant thunder and winds strong enough to blow over a microphone stand.

And everything still worked out in the end as the 127 graduates capped off their undergraduate careers - although for a few, the journey to the stage was longer than four or five years.

JoAnne Wayland, a Washington-area native, proved her point, "It's never too late," as she closed the 30-year gap from when she started college to when she finished.

The experience was shared by many of her classmates and her classmates' families. Michelle Grisham said her husband and two teenagers fended for themselves for supper often. "And they'd find me sleeping at my computer in the morning," said Grisham, who started working toward her degree in 2000.

"I worked too hard not to don a cap and gown," said Grisham, who earned a bachelor's in elementary education with teacher certification. She has an interview for a teaching job Monday.

Even the man who gave the commencement address, called one of the top psychology researchers of the century, didn't obtain his success without some turbulence along the way.

From losing the fifth-grade class presidency - despite a "passionate, moving" speech - to the C he got in freshman psychology, psychology professor Robert Sternberg kept faith in himself. He even defied advice to consider another career, going on to graduate from both Yale and Stanford universities, eventually leading the department where he got the disappointing C.

Knowledge, intelligence, creativity, wisdom and an ethical component are all crucial to being a good leader, Sternberg said.

"You have to defy the crowd" and have faith in yourself, he said.

And for many, that faith paid off at Eureka. Karisa Fleugel graduated with three majors in theater arts and drama, English/writing and elementary education. She started with one major and a minor, but quickly saw there was more she wanted to do.

"I asked if I could take three (majors), and they said yes," Fleugel said.

The class president, Jacob Foor, chose Eureka partially because he wanted to play football. "They let me on the team," he said. The new graduate in history said he never expected to be class president and achieve as much as he has.

"Four years have changed me for the better," Foor said.

Echoing Foor and the college's most famous graduate, President Ronald Reagan, Alumni Board President Steven Kirk summed it up, saying, "Everything good in my life began here."