LINCOLN, Neb. — It’s better late than never for Kent Broyhill, who sent $100 to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to pay off his old parking tickets after graduating more than 40 years ago. 

Broyhill had tried to pay the fines before his 1974 graduation at the campus police station, but an officer told him that the school accepted only cash. Broyhill’s pockets were empty, so the officer gave him a pass as long as he paid the fines as soon as he could.

Broyhill said he forgot about the tickets until a conversation with a college friend and realized that he hadn’t made good on his promise. He sent the $100 with a note explaining what had happened to the college’s Parking and Transit Services, where it landed on Director Dan Carpenter’s desk.

“I can’t remember how many tickets I had, or what I owed, so I got out my checkbook and sent (the university) $100,” said Broyhill, who lives in South Sioux City. “I promised I would pay them. It was the right thing to do.”

Parking staff checked through files but couldn’t find Broyhill’s name. Carpenter said the school doesn’t have records of paper tickets written back that far but that Broyhill’s tickets likely were deemed “uncollectable” sometime in the 1970s or 1980s.

The college sent the money back to Broyhill, because the $100 was probably more than what his tickets were worth, and thanked him for his gesture.

“We got a kick out of it, that’s for sure,” Carpenter said.

Broyhill said trying to pay the fines puts his mind at ease, even decades later.

“We were busy at graduation, and all this stuff was adding up, and it just kind of slipped my mind,” he said. “But I paid them.”