Dual degrees
Grandfather, granddaughter walk the graduation stage on same day in separate classes
by Jessie Milligan
Jorge Lott ’59 will walk with his class as part of the 50-year reunion celebration at commencement today. At the same ceremony, granddaughter Emily Hamm gets her diploma with the class of 2009.
Even with so many relatives attending TCU, it’s still a sweet bit of serendipity that two of the Lott family are involved in commencement ceremonies on the same day.
Today, Jorge Lott ’59 will walk with his class as part of the 50-year reunion celebration at commencement.
His granddaughter, Emily Hamm, participates in the graduation ceremony as part of the class of 2009.
The Fort Worth grandfather and granddaughter didn’t plan it that way but, with so much purple running in the blood, a family member was bound to eventually bump into someone related on graduation day.
Jorge’s father, Wilson Lott, taught English at TCU. Back in the 1950s, Jorge majored in economics while at TCU, where he met and married another TCU student, Joanne Carruthers.
Jorge and Joanne Lott had the first of three children before Jorge even graduated.
Their son John Lott studied economics at TCU from 1977-1981. Son James Lott ’85 graduated with a marketing degree. Their daughter Janette Hahn ’81 now is the director of special education in the Azle school district. It is Janette’s daughter, Emily Hamm, who is graduating with a degree in biology tomorrow.
“It means a lot to the family to have Jorge and Emily together on commencement day,” Joanne Lott says. “Our family is very, very close.”
The pull of TCU has been strong in the Lott family. Jorge spent his career in purchasing at General Dynamics in Fort Worth. Joanne started a company selling advertising on specialty products such as caps and t-shirts. The two eventually retired, but something was wrong.
“We got bored,” Jorge says.
So they headed back to TCU. Jorge works in the TCU post office and Joanne works in the TCU human resources office.