by Rose Ann Aragon

CINCINNATI — Ninety-year-old Louis Schipper never earned his high school diploma. In 1943, as a 17-year-old boy, he convinced his mother to let him leave St. Xavier High School behind and fight in World War II.

“He was the only freshman in the classroom with calluses on his hands,” recalled George Wood, a former classmate. “That farm boy knew how to do a day’s work.”