3,700 graduate from UNLV

Jace Radke

Monday, May 15, 2000 | 11:07 a.m.

Of the more than 3,700 students who graduated from UNLV during two spring commencement ceremonies Sunday, Chris Shumway may be the one pursuing the most unusual career.

"I'm planning on designing roller coasters," said Shumway, who received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. "It's what I've always wanted to do, and I think it will be fun to build things that are strictly for amusement and people's enjoyment."

Before he starts designing hair-raising rides for the likes of Six Flags or Disney theme parks, Shumway will continue his studies at Georgia Tech in Atlanta in pursuit of a master's degree.

His work at UNLV has paid off with a full-ride scholarship to Tech, plus a presidential fellowship that will pay him an additional $90,000 during the four years he is there.

A 1993 Bonanza High School graduate, Shumway says he hopes to build roller coasters to rival the 300-foot-tall Raptor at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Ohio.

While it took Shumway only four years to graduate, Henderson Police Chief Mike Mayberry and Captain Richard Perkins took classes when they could over the years as they worked their way up the ranks of the police department.

Perkins, who is also the majority leader of the Nevada Assembly, took 21 years to earn degrees in criminal justice and political science, and Mayberry spent 30 years pursuing his criminal justice degree.

"Chief Mayberry said this was a goal he had set for himself years ago, and that he wanted to earn his degree no matter how long it took," UNLV President Carol Harter said.

Harter presided over the graduations, the fourth time that the university has had two separate spring commencement ceremonies. They were held at the Thomas & Mack Center at 1 and 5 p.m.

The average age of the graduates was 30 -- the youngest was 18, the oldest 69, Harter said. Since 1964 more than 48,000 people have graduated from UNLV.

Billy Vassiliadis, a lobbyist and adviser to politicians, was honored as a Distinguished Nevadan at the first ceremony.

Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian-born writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, was given an honorary degree of humane letters by Harter.