It was the first week of the fall 1954 semester at Le Moyne College. I stopped to read the notices on the administration bulletin board — there was my name. I was to report to the treasurer of the college.

I knew what this was about. I knew his reputation as a strict, no-nonsense administrator, and I did not look forward to this session.

This was not my first time at Le Moyne. I had completed three years here in 1950 as part of the first group at this brand-new college. At the end of my junior year, however, I left to attend Wadhams Hall Seminary in Ogdensburg with the goal of entering the priesthood.

After a few months at the seminary I realized this was not the vocation for me, and I felt I should help the Korean War effort.

I joined the Army and served in the 11th Airborne Division until February 1953. By then I had a wife and a 6-month-old son, and we returned to Tupper Lake.

After working for a year and a half, and following the arrival of our second child, I realized I wanted to return to Le Moyne and finish my senior year. However, we had a slight problem: how to afford it.

My wife agreed to support my plan and we agreed to find a way. I applied for readmission and was accepted. We had some resources, but not enough to cover tuition. I left for Syracuse, putting my trust in the Jesuits and praying that a solution to my problem could be found.

As soon as I saw my name on that bulletin board, I knew it was about the tuition. I had reason to be nervous.

Father Fingerhut began his stern lecture about who did I think I was to enroll and enter college and then tell him that I could not manage the tuition?

After listening to my history, he agreed to help me. He arranged for a tuition loan; the payments would coincide with money I was eligible for under the G.I. Bill.

Additionally, he found a job for me that would accommodate my class schedule and make it possible for my wife and two children to join me in Syracuse.

After earning my degree I returned home and worked for several years before learning of a new program called the Intensive Teacher Training Program, designed to help alleviate the shortages of teachers by recruiting college graduates with traditional degrees.

This made it possible for me to begin teaching after the first summer of training at the Campus School at SUNY Potsdam, and continue the training program the next two summers and through extension courses.

Being a teacher had been a distant dream (my mother was a teacher), and as we now had five children, returning to college for certification would not have been possible.

I was able to secure a job as a sixth-grade teacher and began that fall. I spent a very rewarding 25 years as an elementary teacher. Three of our nine children are teachers, too, and my daughter, Liza, writes about education for New York Teacher.

We had a parish priest here who often spoke on the mystery of chance and choice. The choices I made led me to a teaching career.

The pivotal point was my decision to return to college and earn my degree, even though I had no specific plan to be a teacher then.

But without having earned that degree, I would not have later been able to enter the training program, and being a teacher would have been a regretful wish.

The money from the G.I. Bill was the pivotal factor that allowed this to happen.

Without that help, allowing me to graduate, my life would certainly have been different and — I am sure — not as rewarding personally as being a teacher.

I support the improved GI Bill for today's veterans.

James Frenette is a retired member of the Tupper Lake Teachers Association.