Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

A matter of degrees

Most college graduates pursue higher education to advance their careers.

But for 85-year-old Las Vegas resident William Echols, earning his diploma was never about that. It was about personal pride.

"Graduating from college was the most important thing in my life," said Echols, who will earn his fourth diploma, this one in electronics, engineering and telecommunications technology from the Community College of Southern Nevada tonight. "It was just something I wanted to accomplish."

Tonight is the third time Echols will cross the stage at the Thomas & Mack Center, breaking his own record for oldest CCSN graduate. This time he will receive a certificate of achievement, but he holds two associate's degrees in applied science and another certificate, all in the area of electronics engineering.

Later this month he hopes to complete another long-anticipated goal of earning his Federal Communications Commission radio license, and he has spent the last few years developing and advancing a U.S. patent for an electronic sensor aimed at catching cheating gamblers.

"It's a great idea and it's not out there," said Warren Hioki, one of Echols' professors and associate dean of information technology and telecommunications at CCSN. "Bill Echols certainly has that mind of looking at better ways to function in society in general."

The invention, patented in 2002, signals the dealer with a light if someone playing blackjack or roulette attempts to add or take away from their bet after all bets are finished, said Echols, demonstrating his invention on make-shift tables in his northwest Las Vegas home. Sensors the size of an ant and invisible under the felt tables catch the slightest hand movements and tell the dealer which player tried to cheat.

In the roulette version, the dealer is able to reset the system with a wave of his hand when he announces the end of betting, Echols said.

Echols said he is still looking for a buyer, but he has already set up a living trust that would direct 40 percent of his profits to CCSN and the other 40 percent to a community college in his hometown of Ullin, Ill., for student scholarships. The remainder would go to his business partner.

Echols, who also has set up scholarship trusts for high school students in Ullin and in his family, said the college donations are aimed at helping younger students have a "chance that I didn't have."

The third of seven children, one of whom was dead at birth, Echols' father died when he was only 6 years old and his pregnant mother was left to care for the family's general store and her large brood during the height of the Great Depression.

Echols enlisted in the Army in 1941 and learned radio operations, helping to establish navigation systems across North Africa with the Army Airways Communications System. He met his wife, Arline, while serving overseas through a pack of Camel cigarettes she donated through "Smokes for Yanks."

Inside the pack was her address in Ohio, so Echols said he wrote her an initial thank-you letter that led to a 2 1/2-year correspondence. When he returned to the United States on leave, they met in person, fell in love and eventually got married, Echols said.

Echols first enrolled in an electronics engineering program for the FCC license in 1948 in Chicago, but he never made it to class. Instead, he took a job for a controls wholesale company in Dayton, Ohio, eventually buying and running the company with Arline for 40 years.

He specialized in selling heating controls and, just this week, donated a 1910 Honeywell version to CCSN for display. The control is one of the oldest known controls there is, Echols said, and is based on an 1885 patent.

The couple sold the company and moved to Las Vegas for the weather, but after Arline died of cancer in 1995, Echols said he didn't know what to do with himself.

He enrolled in a electronic engineering class "to keep busy," but then decided to go after his long desired degree.

He earned the first associate's degree and certificate in electronics engineering in 2001, and the second associate's in telecommunication in 2002.

Hioki said Echols has been an "outstanding student" who has shown great perseverance in finishing his education and putting it to work in his patent.

"He's been a tremendous inspiration to all of us," Hioki said.

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