When 57-year-old Willie Glasper receives his diploma today at Alcorn State University’s commencement ceremony, the Vicksburg native said he’ll be achieving a goal he should have set 40 years ago.

“When I graduated from Rosa A. Temple in 1970, I had scholarship offers from two universities in art,” said Glasper, Port Gibson postmaster and president of the Vicksburg Homecoming Benevolent Club. “I chose not to go to college and go to work for Fred’s Dollar Store as an assistant manager instead. I told my mother, ‘You go to college to get a good job’ — as naive as I was.”

Glasper will be a part of what is nearly the largest graduating class in ASU history. A total of 621 undergraduate and graduate students have earned degrees this academic year — slightly fewer than last’s year record 629 graduates. Commencement begins at 8:30 a.m., with Judge Lillie Blackmon Sanders, the first female circuit court judge in the state, delivering the commencement speech.