AUBURN – Navy veteran Deb Lyons had a rough start when she began college in 2004.

“I thought they were going to throw me out of school,” Lyons said. “I failed a couple of classes, big fat Fs.”

It was a long road, but she turned it around.

On May 9, she’ll graduate with an associate degree in human services, and as Central Maine Community College’s student of the year. The annual award goes to a student for his or her academic success and campus community involvement.

Winning the award is overwhelming, she said. “I never planned to go to college. It’s the last place I expected to be.”

Lyons, 47, of Oxford, graduated from Edward Little High School in 1979 and joined the Navy.

After serving for six years, she returned to Maine to work.

She found manufacturing and print shop jobs, “but it seemed like every three years I was getting laid off. Places were closing. The economy was changing.”

She decided she needed retraining. She met with a career counselor and learned she qualified for two years of college education because of federal legislation to help workers displaced by NAFTA policies.

But before she started college, she needed a series of adult education classes to get ready, including biology, chemistry and algebra. That took her 18 months.

In the fall of 2004 she enrolled at CMCC. The first year “chemistry and math were horrible,” she said. After not finding success in her first program, clinical lab, she transferred to the medical assistant program. The results were about the same.

She felt dejected. “I’m not a quitter, but I was frustrated,” Lyons said. “My biggest problem was not asking for help. I believed you’re given a task to do, you do it” without asking questions. And she was so shy she had trouble making eye contact.

Then Lyons took an issues and diversity class in the human services program. “All of a sudden things started to get alot better,” she said. So she switched programs again, this time to human services, discovering her strengths were psychology, sociology and writing. And she figured out how to work on her weaknesses, math-related courses, by ignoring her shyness and asking for help.

She joined the student group Women in Technology. “They brought me in and hooked me up with a study buddy,” she said. “I brought my math up from an F to an A minus. I’ve never had an A in math my entire life. I thought, ‘This is cool!’ “

Before long she became a leader in student groups. When taking a new class Lyons would announce to other students, “I’m going to get a study group together. Are you interested?”

She started mentoring students, especially immigrants who felt lost in a new culture. She was in their shoes when she was in the Navy, Lyons said. “I spent two years in Japan. I know what it’s like to have nobody to talk to.”

She mentored several Somali women, including one she took to a Catholic Mass at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul so the Somali student could write a paper about a new cultural experience.

CMCC faculty noticed Lyons had a talent and offered her part-time jobs counseling fellow students. “They’re going to pay me to talk to people?” she remembered thinking with wonder.

Another student she mentored is Mustafa Al-Taiy, 24, an Iraqi immigrant. She spent time with Al-Taiy answering his questions about American customs. Sounding like a proud mother, she said Al-Taiy is smart and excels in his classes. “I’m so proud of that kid.”

She recently asked him what he wanted to do that didn’t involve academics. He told her he wanted to go fishing, so she and some friends pooled money together to get him a license and gear. “We are going fishing this summer,” she said.

While some want tangible rewards, her reward comes from making a difference for someone, “knowing they’re going to be OK,” Lyons said.

She has advice for students struggling academically, especially first-generation college students. At most colleges “they have tutors for everything.” Ask for help. “Make sure to see your adviser. They’ll work on your schedule.”

Lyons is planning to attend the University of Maine at Augusta to work on a four-year degree for her future career. “I’m leaning toward counseling.”