Allan Appel Photo
Their dad was always there for them. Then Clayton Bostic died suddenly a month shy of finishing his a late-in-life college career. His sons returned the service Thursday night: They accepted a certificate awarded posthumously to their father.
That was one of the most poignant stories of many that unfolded at the 18th commencement exercises of Gateway Community College.
More than 650 graduates, a record number, were awarded degrees Thursday in spirited ceremonies at Woolsey Hall on the Yale University campus.
“He was the go-to guy in the family,” said Clayton Bostic’s son Maurice (at right in top photo, with Clayton Bostic, Jr.) after their father’s certificate in human services was presented.
GCC Photo
“His voice drew a crowd,” said Maurice. It had the sound of a pulpit preacher’s. But it was as a one-on-one listener and inspirational adviser to his son in his new marriage, and to many others, that Clayton Bostic (pictured) left his mark.
Everything had been going right for the army vet. He had struggled with substance problems but turned his life around over the past three years.
“He just got tired of being tired,” said Maurice of his dad’s struggles and turnaround.
At his mid-century mark Bostic senior discovered a place of renewal within himself. He became an apostle for the power of hope and was convinced it resided in everyone.
He had already been helping to run the sober house at the Hill Health Center. Then he decided to take courses in the social work to which he had naturally gravitated.
At Gateway, where Bostic enrolled two years ago in the human services certificate program, he became well known among the students for his generous style of listening. He was especially attentive to the younger vets, said Robert Miles, the recently retired director of career services at GCC.
With his imposing physical size, Bostic was a “a gentle giant,” said his brother-in-low Linton Dunn (pictured with wife Bobbi, Bostic’s sister). He was a cynosure at the community college: a physically imposing person and a larger than life presence. When he walked into a room, and people talked to him, there was suddenly laughter, Dunn said.
According to his sister Bobbi Dunn, Bostic once even donned a blond wig and bore two tablets like a huge, comic Moses, the character he played in a school production.
Which was no problem at all for his younger son, Clayton Jr., 19, who enrolled at GCC shortly after his father and in part inspired by his example.
They never took a course together. But whenever they’d see each other in the hall, “He’d walk over and take me to get something to eat,” said the younger Clayton.
Before he died, suddenly, at age 53, he’d made the Dean’s List. He’d also become a fixture at Gateway as someone always available to talk and to help, especially those who were struggling.
One of his teachers told Dunn that when he’d been informed of Bostic’s death, he had his student’s papers in his folder. He kept them there for weeks, he was so saddened. “He couldn’t get rid of it,” Dunn said.
At the wake held at Promised Land Church of God in West Haven, dozens of people spoke of how Bostic had given them guidance and example.
“We had no idea,” said Linton Dunn. Nor did Bostic’s sons realize just how many people their father’s life had touched.
So in his honor, the certificate was awarded posthumously at the Thursday night’s graduation.
The Bostic story fit right in with themes hit in the volley of charges from the commencement day speakers.
“Look beyond your tassled caps and you will find injustice. That is your work [to repair],” said GCC President Dorsey Kendrick, who presided over the ceremonies.
Kathleen Shanley, the chairperson of the GCC Foundation, quoted Winston Churchill to the graduates: “Never, never, never give up.”
The featured charger to the graduates, Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier, recounted the dismal employment situation for college grads. She suggested if students can’t find the job of their dreams, “One of the best kept secrets of success is volunteering.”
“Above all, use your education charitably to light the future,” she advised a sea of blue-robed graduates who filled up the central section of Woolsey.
She might have been describing Clayton Bostic. In the third row below her, side section, Bobbi Dunn’s eyes began to tear up.
After former State Rep. Bill Dyson received the GCC Board of Trustees Merit Award, he echoed Nappier on the don’t‑give-up theme, even at an exceedingly tough economic moment.
Then Dyson brought it down to earth. He paraphrased Martin Luther King: Whatever kind of work you find yourself doing, even if it’s sweeping the streets, sweep them like Michelangelo, he said.
The Bostic brothers said they were going to take their father’s certificate and place it beside two favorite photographs on a shelf of honor they’d already prepared for him in Maurice’s house.
What was his sister thinking as the last graduates lined up to receive their diplomas, buy gaudy balloons, and trail off to celebratory dinners?
Bobbi Dunn said that the chance to have been at the ceremony “would have meant the world to him.”