It seems like Almost Yesterday that Vernon Meyr of Altenburg, Missouri was a student at Southeast Missouri State University. But, it seems, Vernon Meyr was always a student at Southeast. No one attended Southeast as long as Vernon did.
Vernon R. Meyer was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1921, the son of Rudolph and Hattie Schmidt Meyr. His parents moved to Perry County when Vernon was a youngster, and he lived the rest of his life in the region he proudly called, “East Perry County.”
In June of 1940, Vernon graduated valedictorian of his senior class at Perryville High School. He was determined to go to college, but his parents learned of an opening at the Bank of Altenburg and as jobs were hard to come by, encouraged him to apply. He was hired and began a nearly five-decade relationship with the locally owned bank, as clerk, teller, loan officer, president, and chairman of the board.
Although actively engaged in banking, Meyr never gave up his ambition to receive his college degree, and thus enrolled for one night course each semester for 43 years receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in 1983, and continued working until he received a degree in history in 1990, and immediately enrolled in graduate school in pursuit of a Master of Arts Degree in History, which was awarded in an emotional ceremony at The Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau in March of 2000.
One month later, on April 28, 2000, 78 year old Vernon Meyr, passed away, a determined student who proudly received three university degrees in the course of sixty years.