By Dee Camp
Chronicle staff

     OKANOGAN - Wilford Schreckengast will become a member of the Okanogan High School class of 1948 when he picks up his diploma next Tuesday during a Veterans Day ceremony.
     Schreckengast dropped out after his sophomore year, at age 17, to join the Navy. He said he was interested in electronics and mechanics, and felt, at the time, that he'd exhausted offerings at Okanogan.
     "I thought the Navy offered more," he said. At the time, "high school didn't mean that much."
     Schreckengast said he came from a broken home and "I was kind of a rebellious child, with no manly guidance."
     He had a career in electrical work, and though his classmates always included him in reunions, he remained bothered by the fact that he'd dropped out.
     Schreckengast, 79, said he learned earlier this year of a law that allows people who dropped out of high school and served during a war to apply for a diploma. He served during the Korean War.
     He applied and the Okanogan School Board signed his diploma Oct. 28, though the document bears a 1948 date.
     Principal Bob Shacklett said the diploma will be presented in front of the student body during a Veterans Day observance at 9 a.m. Nov. 10.
     Schreckengast said he worked during high school at the Avalon Theater as a relief projectionist before entering the Navy. After basic training, he was assigned to the base theater showing training films.
     "That was my only shore duty," he said.
     He was assigned all over the Far East, including occupied Japan, China, The Philippines and Korea.
     Seeing the World War II devastation in The Philippines and Japan "was quite an eye-opener at 17, 18, 19," he said.
     "I was in the Yangtze River about the time my class graduated," he said. "I'd been to three countries and one province by then."
     Schreckengast said he earned a GED before leaving the Navy.
     "The good Lord gave me enough sense to do that," he said.
     After he left the service, he returned to Okanogan and worked in television repair for Bev Wilson Furniture and the television cable company. Then he worked in metering for the Okanogan County Public Utility District for 25 years.
     He installed and tested meters.
     "I owe it all to the military for a career," he said. "It gave me the background."
     He and his wife, Donna, have four children - Elaine, Randy, Terry and Larry, who is Omak Police chief.
     Schreckengast served on the Okanogan School Board for 10 years and said he signed all of his children's diplomas. He also was on the Okanogan City Council for several years.
     He's had several grandchildren graduate from high school before him and, when he receives his diploma, will become the third generation - or really the first - to graduate from Okanogan.