Congratulations to Merle Haggard! After spending only nine days at Bakersfield High School and getting expelled from school in eighth grade, he has finally received his high school diploma. The 78-year-old was given the honor this weekend before his concert at the Fox Theater in his hometown of Bakersfield, Calif.

A few weeks before summer vacation in eighth grade Merle got expelled for making fun of a chorus teacher who was running late for class. That didn’t improve his mood about school, and he ended up skipping school most of the ninth grade. His story is quite well known…juvenile detention center growing up, then arrested for burglary and sent to the local Bakersfield jail, after an escape attempt he was transferred to the infamous San Quentin prison. This is where Merle says he turned his life around, and did earn a high school equivalency diploma in 1960, 5 years before his first album Strangers was released.

He is now a Grammy winner, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and he holds an Honorary Doctorate from California State University in Bakersfield. I’m sure the honor was quite surprising for Merle at the age of 78, not to mention the fact that he only spent nine days at the high school, but CONGRATULATIONS Merle Haggard! 

Photo By: YouTube

By: Faith Rinker