After a lifelong dream, she got her high school diploma at 55 — with her 64-year-old fiancé

Not having a high school diploma always felt like a void to Chenita Owens, a mark against her despite a life full of family and hard work.

But how could she go back to a classroom again, nearly 40 years after leaving West Philadelphia High when her first daughter was born?

Enter Kenneth Mobley, Owens’ fiance.

“I know she was hell-bent on getting her diploma,” said Mobley, who himself had left Olney High three credits shy of a diploma. “I said, ‘I’m sitting home, I might as well do this, too, to support her. That will help her to get her diploma.’”

So Mobley, then 62, and Owens, 53, both returned to school via the Philadelphia School District’s Educational Options Program at Northeast High.

Last week, they donned caps and gowns and accepted their diplomas — together.

“I would have never thought this was possible, being in this place right now,” Mobley said. “I never dreamed of it. It’s all surreal to me.”

Mobley stopped going to classes at Olney High in 1977 when he was an 11th grader. He had a daughter, and he dropped out, working for 25 years in bakeries his father owned, then for a company mapping cable lines, then for FedEx, then as a paratransit driver and trainer.

Unlike Owens, not finishing high school didn’t faze Mobley much.

“Back in the ’70s and ’80s, I acquired a trade,” said Mobley, now 64, with six children, nine grandchildren, and one great-grandchild with another on the way. “I didn’t find it necessary to have a diploma. I was always good at what I did.”

Owens got pregnant at 16 and gave birth at 17; she kept going to school for a while but would sign in, then walk out the back door, never going to classes. Eventually, she left school altogether.

She tried multiple times to earn her GED, but math classes were a struggle, and paying for programs and tests grew too expensive.

She was always employed — with retail jobs, working as a toll taker and for Blue Cross, caregiving. But she would tell her four children: Don’t be like me.

“The whole time while they were in school, I pounded it in their heads: ‘Get that piece of paper. After that, you can do what you want to do,’” said Owens, 55.

In 2007, Owens and Mobley were crossing 69th Street. Both were on their phones, arguing. Owens was on her break from her retail job, and Mobley had just made a FedEx delivery.

Owens didn’t notice Mobley, but he sure noticed her. He crossed the street but circled back, figured out the store where she worked, and went inside. He saw her ringing customers up at a register and grabbed the first item he saw — a pair of boys’ underpants — so he could stand in her line and strike up a conversation.

“He said something crazy to make me laugh,” Owens remembered. There was a spark, and after that day, Mobley made regular stops at Owens’ workplace. “He would come in the store, and we would talk.”

She would send roses to his office. They became a couple, and they built a life together. Eventually, Mobley proposed.

There’s no wedding date, but Mobley said they’ll marry “whenever she’s ready. I’m not going anywhere.”

Mobley’s early days in the school program were tough. With chronic back pain — he has had multiple surgeries and was paralyzed for a time — toting his cane, his pillow, and his heavy book bag was too much.

After a month, Mobley told a school official he had to quit; he was in too much pain.

“She said, ‘No, keep that Chromebook. I’ll see you back next year,’” Mobley said. The administrator was right — Mobley improved enough to return without needing to use a cane. He also brought a luggage trolley to carry his backpack.

For Owens, the struggle was mental: her old nemesis, math.

“When I went to the class, and I saw what the teacher was doing, I raised my hand and told him it was foreign to me,” Owens said.

Mobley nodded knowingly.

“That new math,” he said.

One night, Owens asked her son for help with her homework. He asked why she couldn’t figure it out herself.

“I said, ‘Boy, do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been out of school?’” Owens said, laughing.

But Owens found her teachers patient, working with her one-on-one until she understood.

They didn’t study together — Owens is more laid-back, and Mobley often used the times he was up at 3 or 4 a.m. with pain as study sessions.

“I’m more intense,” he said. “I just left her alone.”

They had different approaches with classmates, too. Mobley, who had supervised employees for most of his career, was a little more removed. But he loved meeting people from all walks of life, said it shifted his world view in some ways.

“I met some great kids there; they looked up to me, called me Elder Ken,” Mobley said. “But she was more cool with the student body than I was.”

Both eventually relished the challenge of classes: Owens ended up taking extra because she found them interesting.

And then there was the prom, a fancy affair at a South Philadelphia catering hall. Owens very much wanted to attend, but the couple didn’t have the money when it came time to buy tickets. Luckily, a teacher received donated tickets and insisted Mobley and Owens accept them.

“He wore his blue suit, and I had just went to the store and bought two fancy dresses for $7, and I wore one of them,” Owens said.

To their surprise, they were crowned Prom King and Queen, posing in red robes and gold crowns and sashes.

At graduation, Mobley was chosen as a speaker. Their families crowded into Temple University’s Performing Arts Center.

Owens helped Mobley adjust the tassel on his cap, gold with a “2025″ dangling — same as Owens’ grandson will wear when he graduates from high school later this year.

Owens smiled at Mobley, taking deep breaths as he contemplated his speech.

“It feels good,” she said.