When injury prevented Terri Taylor from continuing as a bus driver, she and her husband sat down for serious talk.

"I said, 'What have you always wanted to do that you never got to do?'" remembered her husband, Kelly.

Terri knew right off. "Go to college," she said.

"Alright," Kelly had replied. "Let's get our expenses down to where we can live off what I make, so you can do that."

Five years later, the Pocatello couple stood on the North Idaho College campus on Friday, with Terri, 52, draped in a maroon graduation gown.

After years of giving up cable and other extras to afford her return to school, Terri collected a certificate in electronic medical records from NIC, which she had earned online.

Adding that to the associates in science and health information technology she accepted from Idaho State University the day before, Terri said she has already found a higher paying job at a medical office.

"I've always wanted to be in the medical field," Terri said, adding that she wants to shoot for her master's next.

"She deserves it. She's worked so hard," her husband said. "It's what you need to get ahead, anymore."

A lot of dreams were finally getting off the ground on Friday at NIC's graduation ceremony, where 425 of the 1,000 eligible for graduation participated.

The graduates' ages ranged from 16 to 67, announced NIC President Priscilla Bell, addressing a packed gymnasium where families snapped photos of their daughters, sons, fathers, mothers and siblings crowned with four-cornered caps.

Noting that some were dual enrolled students, some were working adults earning a first or second degree, Bell lauded how the students of the community college hail from all backgrounds.

"Your work has set you in a position from which you can build a path of success," Bell told the rows of graduates.

Jan Armon of Coeur d'Alene accepted congratulations from her family after being handed her associate of science.

The 50-year-old plans to transition to Lewis Clark State College to obtain a degree in social work, she said, with hopes of becoming a grief counselor.

"It's hard. I work full time and go to school full time," Armon said, adding that her age adds extra pressure. "You're the oldest in your class. You're sitting in math class going, 'Really? I never learned this.'"

But she was motivated by her niece, she added.

"She was the first to graduate from NIC," Armon said. "It inspired me to do that, too."

Her niece, Jessica Arlofski, said she was thrilled with Armon's achievement.

"There are a lot of doubts. That's the biggest hurdle," Arlofski said. "I don't think it's ever too late to go back to school."

Matt Gailley said he opted for a new degree after being injured on the job as a diesel mechanic.

Holding an associate in computer design on Friday, the 30-year-old said he already has work designing a silver mine and a titanium mine out of state.

"It was hard. A lot harder than the first time I went to be a mechanic," the Coeur d'Alene man admitted of returning to school.

But it was worth it for a better occupation, Gailley said.

"I came in and finished up something that would apply more to me," he said.

The ceremony's commencement speaker, communications instructor Josh Misner, reminded students that the celebration of graduation comes with "a terribly frustrating, knee-buckling transition to instability, ambiguity and ultimately the unknown."

There will be inevitable failures, he said.

"Those failures can easily destroy your ability to dream," he said. "But only if you're unwilling to learn from those mistakes and reinvent your dreams as needed."

Reinvention had been the path for Gordon Brown, 42, who commuted from Sandpoint to NIC every day to earn his applied associate in computer information technology.

Standing by his 11-year-old son after Friday's ceremony, Brown said college was the top option when work in logging and construction evaporated.

"Just my love of computers," Brown said of how he chose his new field, where he already has a potential job lined up. "I was always told to do something you love."

He's proud, he added, that his son plans to go to college, too.

"I hope this just reinforces that," Brown said.