By Mary Koch
Special to The Chronicle

     OMAK - At age 84 and a half, Leonard Paulsen, Tonasket, may not be Omak's oldest high school graduate, but he surely waited the longest to get his diploma.
     To avoid being drafted into the Army, Paulsen enlisted in the Navy in 1943, dropping out of high school at age 17.
     He received his sheepskin during the Omak School Board meeting Nov. 24. Several of his family members attended the event, as did Wilford Schreckengast, Okanogan.
     A few weeks ago, Paulsen read in The Chronicle about how Schreckengast, 79, was awarded his diploma by Okanogan High School on Nov. 11. Schreckengast, a Korean War veteran, had discovered a law that allows veterans who have served during wartime to apply for a diploma.
     With the urging of his wife, Nellie, a cousin of Schreckengast's wife, Donna, Paulsen set up a meeting with Omak Superintendent Arthur Himmler. After hearing Paulsen's story, Himmler immediately scheduled a diploma-awarding ceremony.
     "It's been a long time," Paulsen said as board President Wendell George handed him the diploma.
     "I'm going to get me an easier job," said Paulsen, who is retired. "I'll be smarter then, won't I?"
     Paulsen's easy humor may be a key to his lifelong knack for survival. His mother was pregnant with him when a fire destroyed the family's home in Oroville, killing all four of his older siblings.
     His parents moved to Disautel, where he grew up along Omak Creek. He had a spotty school attendance record because his mother, undoubtedly suffering from the loss of four children, frequently kept him home, he said.
     In his three-year Navy career, Paulsen served on several ships in the Pacific Theater, most notably the S.S. Cape San Juan, a troop carrier.
     He was quartermaster, up on the bridge, when a Japanese submarine attacked, strategically nailing his ship in the stern. The San Juan sank near the Fiji Islands Nov. 11-12, 1943.
     He was in the water for some time before he got into a life boat, he said.
     Some 200 survivors were picked up by another ship, but the rescue was almost worse than the attack.
     The rescue ship's captain refused to feed or clothe the survivors, Paulsen said. Led by his own captain, Paulsen participated in a mutiny and took over the ship, whose captain ultimately went to prison.
     Paulsen doesn't dwell on the horror of those events, saying, "You go through a lot." The men were returned to San Francisco and offered counseling, but Paulsen said, "Leave me out of it."
     He went home for 30 days, then shipped out again.
     He was involved in several battles, earning three medals. At one point he volunteered to serve as gunner on an airplane that was flying from Okinawa to Japan. He somehow missed the plane, which never made it back.
     "I did a lot of crazy things," he said.
     "He still does a lot of crazy things," Nellie said.
     After visiting at least 20 ports of call from Australia to Asia to South Africa, Paulsen was in China in 1946 after World War II ended. He came home via a convoy of small ships, taking 11 weeks to get to Bremerton.
     Despite his medals and promotions, Paulsen was discharged as a seaman first class.
     "I went in that way and came out that way," he said. As a feisty 20-year-old, he'd taken a swing at an ensign, whose father happened to be a captain.
     He returned to Omak and asked for a diploma, but the superintendent declined on the basis of Paulsen's attendance record.
     Paulsen worked as a trucker and later a charter bus driver. He and his first wife, Jean (nee Shock), raised two daughters and a son in Spokane. They'd been married 43 and a half years when Jean died.
     Nellie, who'd been a classmate with Jean at Tonasket High School, wrote him a sympathy note. She, too, was widowed with the death of her husband, Art Zachman.
     After some insistent courtship on Paulsen's part, the two were married and celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary Nov. 17.
     He is, Nellie said, a master carpenter and has made 15 doll cradles over the years for their combined flock of granddaughters and great-granddaughters.
     His survival skills have seen him through five cancer surgeries. One surgeon warned he might not live through one of those operations.
     Paulsen poked him in the chest and said, "You do your job, and I'll be here when you get done."
     And he was.

-Chronicle Managing Editor Dee Camp contributed to this story