David Richards was one of those kids who fell through the cracks -- but that didn't stop him from graduating summa cum laude from SDSU, reported the North County Times.
He managed to accomplish that while working a full-time job as a recreation supervisor for the city of Poway and helping to run his wife's equestrian business. His most noteworthy achievement, though, was accomplishing all that despite never spending a day in a school classroom until the age of 19.
Richards' parents, deeply religious, decided before he attended kindergarten that they would home-school Richards and his two siblings. At age 10, he said, his mother threw his books at him and told him to teach himself. With the family moving frequently for his father's job as a software engineer, nobody noticed that Richards wasn't attending school.
Recently, however, Richards was the student speaker at the graduation exercises for the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts at San Diego State University, where he accumulated many honors. He received the college's award as the outstanding graduate. He was also elected the outstanding student by the faculty of the School of Public Affairs, carrying a 3.975 grade point average.
