Travis Honea will graduate magna cum laude when he receives his degree in mechanical engineering technology on Saturday, May 17, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

His achievement seems even more remarkable when considering the 37-year-old single father of three persevered through two separate deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and also a full-time job as a plant manager near Beebe.

But Honea has never shied away from hard work.

By the time he was 22, he had earned his journeyman’s card as a machinist and tool and die maker beginning with his enrollment in a skilled trades program at Cabot High School.

The credentials required apprenticing in the evenings and a total of 10,000 on-the-job hours, in addition to classroom work. Honea was always interested in how things worked but admittedly a little less interested in grades back then.

“I was always working on cars with my dad and doing things with my hands,” he said. “The logic behind everything became very clear to me at an early age. I was good at math but pretty content with B’s and C’s on my report card.”

As a part-time student at UALR during the 1996-97 academic year, Honea again settled for average grades. Soon after, he got married and continued to work 50-plus hours a week at two jobs, one in manufacturing and one in the sub-prime mortgage industry.

Everything changed when Honea felt called to serve after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I was trying to do anything I could to better myself,” he said. “I figured out that chasing money was not for me.”

Honea joined the Army Reserves just as his firstborn daughter turned a year old. Another daughter and son soon followed, but his marriage didn’t last after Honea was deployed to Iraq from 2006-08. As part of the divorce settlement, Honea took custody of his three young children.

By this time, Honea realized he wasn’t getting younger and that U.S. manufacturing jobs were on the decline, so he became more intent than ever on finishing a college degree.

Then, in 2010, he had one more deployment to Afghanistan.

When he came home in 2011, he re-enrolled full time in school, while also working full time and raising his children. Except this time around, B’s and C’s were no longer acceptable.

“I guess what kept me motivated was a mix of wanting integrity and self respect,” Honea said. “Maybe I had not held up so well the morals I had said I valued, and it got to a point where I wanted people to remember me a certain way before I die.”

Another motivation was to be an example to his children.

“I knew if they saw me doing this right, they could never have an excuse. They could never say they were too busy (to do well in school),” Honea said.

His degree will not necessarily advance his career as a plant manager or guarantee a higher income if he remains there. He says that is beside the point.

“Even if I don’t do anything with the degree, I still want an education; I want the knowledge,” Honea said. “I’m not fan of not knowing something. And I guess I also viewed the degree as a good back-up plan in case my current job doesn’t work out.”

When he graduates on Saturday, Honea’s three children, several friends and his parents will be there to support him.

“He set goals for himself and his children, never lost sight of those goals, and all have benefited from his dedication to education, family and hard work,” said his mother, Gloria Honea.

“It’s one more chapter of my life that I get to close and move on from,” Honea said.

He paused, and then added, “Maybe I can finally go to a ballgame or two with my kids.”