#MCCGrads2025: 1 p.m. student commencement speaker is a free spirit with a road map for her life
Teddi Dixon III
Teddi Dixon III does, and she’s fast-tracking everything: A year out of high school, she’s graduating with her associate degree from Metropolitan Community College. In two years, she expects to have two degrees in business from Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph.
Then she will look for a remote job that allows her and her boyfriend, who will be a travel nurse, to work from home … on the road. They’ll be seeing the U.S.A. in a camper and saving money.
After that, Teddi would love to work in HR or management at a Mosaic hospital. She should be more anchored then, maybe homesteading with other family members at her parents’ 20-acre farm in Gower, Missouri, north of Smithville.
“To me, the idea behind this is that we can work on building everything together, as a community. … My sister’s dream is to build a one-room schoolhouse where she will teach all of our children.”
Her name really is Teddi Dixon III (dad is Teddy Dixon Jr.), even though boys usually get the suffix. This youngest-of-five has one brother, “but my dad says the name Joey felt right for him.” Her name is meaningful for Teddi, reminding her she’s “the successor of my father and (late) grandfather, who knew the value of hard work and education.”
The Dixons used to have a family band, Teddy and the Bears (the Bears being Teddi and her twin sisters). Teddi played a washtub bass and later picked up guitar and ukulele.
At MCC, she completed about half her classes online, although MCC-Maple Woods was her home campus. Her favorite spot in “the Woods”: the library.
“The students who come to the library to work are always determined and positive, which I love and relate to,” Teddi says. Having peers to encourage her “reinforced my work ethic and helped me stay on top of things.”
Teddi holds down two jobs, school or no school. She’s the “longest standing” employee of the Plattsburg Country Club, where she might be working the beverage cart, managing the tee sheet or cooking and serving. Second job: being a housekeeper/caregiver for people on Medicaid.
As for her address to fellow grads, Teddi will muse on the titles with which we identify ourselves. Like college graduate. Earning that title, she says, is “a great privilege and honor.”