AKRON, Ohio _ Ted Bare's graduation from Kent State has been decades in the making.
His stroll across the stage to finally collect his bachelor's degree came after taking a 47-year "break" to pursue a career that includes entertaining tens of thousands of movie lovers along with serving more pizza than you can shake a stick of pepperoni at.
He dreamed of being a dentist.
Then a business major.
Back to pre-dentistry.
And back to business again.
All the while studying medicine and business at Kent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were Spanish classes along with some history and political science classes that also piqued his interest.
By the time 1971 rolled around, Bare by then a "super" senior had tallied up 216 credit hours with just 192 hours needed for graduation.
He just lacked one required course to walk across the stage and collect his diploma.
But the demands of his college job of running the movie theater in Medina's Square became too much so he put off his college career and traded for one in the movie biz.
He would go on to own that theater and 11 others throughout the region.
Bare still owns the Highland and Linda theaters in Akron.
He also dabbled in the pizza business and still owns the two remaining Leonardo's pizza shops in Akron and Fairlawn.
Running all the theaters and pizza shops demanded a lot of time along with raising two kids with his wife, Linda, a teacher at Revere schools. Their son, Sonny went on to be a doctor and daughter Betsy is an attorney.
At one point, Bare was the largest independent movie theater owner in Northeast Ohio.
While he has no regrets, Bare said, the approach to turning 70 this past March made him think about the unfinished college degree.
He said he's surrounded by all these "smart" people from his wife to his two kids and he didn't want to be the only one at the dinner table without a college degree.
"The chain is only as good as its weakest link," he said with a laugh.
So he quietly set out to finish his last required class.
And since his college catalog is so out of date, Kent State folks enrolled him in a writing course to "officially" complete his studies.
Kent State spokesman Eric Mansfield said Bare worked with Associate Dean David Odell Scott to complete the degree.
His task was to write a paper he titled "The Urbanization of Ted Bare" about growing up in a pretty culturally isolated neighborhood to establishing and running businesses in ethically and socially diverse parts of the city and the state.
His paper ended up being more of a treatise weighing in at some 50 pages.
"They told me I was an overachiever," Bare said.
As an Eagle Scout, he said, looking back it is odd that he didn't finish his college studies sooner as he is not one to walk away from a challenge or leave something unfinished.
"This wasn't about some bucket list," he said. "This was about finishing a job."
Of the 1,325 diplomas handed out including 834 bachelor's degrees, 410 master's degrees, 68 doctoral degrees and 13 educational specialist degrees at Kent's summer commencement, Bare said, his was by far the longest to come to fruition with a bachelor's of science in education studies.
"I suppose one could say I was a slow learner," he said.
