“It’s like a dream come true,” said family matriarch Diana Flygare
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/Diana-Flygare-Melissa-Davis-Hadley-Davis-3-050126-297a23289dd34393a4cd76947067d8d1.jpg "Utah Valley University - (from left) Diana Flygare, Melissa Davis, Hadley Davis Grandmother, Daughter and Grand daughter, three generations of UVU students who will be graduating at the same time at the 2026 UVU Commencement on the UVU Campus in Orem, Utah on Monday, April 27, 2026.")
Credit: August Miller, UVU Marketing Communications
NEED TO KNOW
- Diana Flygare, her daughter Melissa Davis, and her granddaughter Hadley Davis recently received their degrees from Utah Valley University as members of the Class of 2026
- For Diana, it took her 40 years to finally realize her dream
- "We're so, so happy that it just happened to be all the same semester," Melissa said
A recent college graduation involving three generations of the same family was decades in the making.
On Wednesday, April 29, Hadley Davis, her mother Melissa Davis, and her grandmother Diana Flygare all received bachelor's degrees from Utah Valley University (UVU) as part of the Class of 2026.
However, the women insist that the timing was purely a coincidence — and that they didn't know they were all on track to graduate at the same time until back in December.
“We were talking to each other and just realized; oh I’m graduating! Oh, I’m graduating and we just put it together and it just kind of happened!” mom Melissa told Fox affiliate KSTU.
Added daughter Hadley, "we did not plan this at all."
Credit: August Miller, UVU Marketing Communications
Melissa, who works at the school, already had an undergraduate and a master's degree in English under her belt, but this time around, she wanted to pursue a public health degree.
“I was looking at the course catalog, and public health was such a close match to things I care about deeply, like access to healthy foods,” Melissa said in a story published on the school's website. “So I thought I'd just do public health. And then during my first semester, they put a nutrition minor on. And I'm like, ‘Well, this is working out.' ”
By comparison, this degree is a first for Melissa's mother.
Although Diana began taking classes at the school since she was 17, when the university was known as Utah Technical College, her goal of working towards a master's degree in social work ended up getting put on hold.
“Things kept coming up,” Diana told the school. “I had to go back to work full time, which meant that I had to back out of school, which was a huge disappointment for me.”
She added, per KSTU: “Quite honestly I think I've been trying to get a degree for nearly 40 years.”
Diana also said that she kept a Christmas ornament of a graduate in a cap and gown at her work desk as a form of encouragement.
Credit: August Miller, UVU Marketing Communications
“It's just a little Christmas ornament, and I thought when I graduate, I'll put this on my tree,” she told KSTU.
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Melissa said she is proud that her mother finally realized her goal. “I was afraid she wouldn't finish,” she told UVU, “and so she did, and we're so, so happy that it just happened to be all the same semester.”
In addition to Melissa's bachelor's degree in public health, Diana and her granddaughter Hadley received their degrees in psychology, according to the school.
“It's incredible,” Diana told UVU. “It's like a dream come true. It's just beyond exciting for me.”
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