Eugene \’Jeep\’ MacAdams (right) received his high school diploma from Frank Gwalthney, Woodbury School Board president, during a school board meeting. (photo provided)

by Bob Shryock/Gloucester County Times

Eugene \”Jeep\” MacAdams dropped out of Woodbury High School in 1941, just a month shy of graduating, to join the Army National Guard and help support his mother, Lydia, who was getting by on just $78 subsistence a month for her five dependent children and herself. The National Park family had struggled mightily after the death of Charles MacAdams, husband and father, when Jeep was just 10.

Seventy years later, Jeep, 88, who now resides in Ocean View, is officially a Woodbury High School graduate. Continuing its practice of granting belated diplomas that started about 10 years ago, the Woodbury Board of Education presented one to MacAdams at its recent regular meeting at the Evergreen School.

\”I was no dummy, but I was never bothered about not having the diploma, figuring I didn’t need it,\” Jeep says. \”None of my brothers (Charles, Joe, Edwin and Horace) graduated either. But with so many family members there for me, it was a proud moment.\”

Among the 20-some family attendees were Jeep’s children, Jeanne MacAdams of Swedesboro, Ken and Tommy, both of Brooklawn, and Scott of West Deptford, one of the prime organizers.

\”It was a much bigger deal than he expected,\” Scott says. \”Everything went very nice.\”