While record-setting climber Apa Sherpa attempts his 19th ascent of Mount Everest, his oldest son walked across a podium Friday with the Salt Lake Community College Class of 2009, bringing home the family's first academic degree.

Tenzing Sherpa, 23, descends from a long line of Sherpas from Nepal, yet he's the first person in his family to receive any formal education, excelling with honors in business accounting at SLCC. He has already landed a part-time accounting job with Diamond Mold.

"They have this opportunity and they're seizing the opportunity," said Jerry Mika, family spokesman. Before coming to America, the Sherpa children received very little training from boarding schools in the area and all of the family's money went to their education.

"It's his life dream to educate his children," Mika said of Apa. "Coming from a Third World country, they've really achieved a lot."

In the just more than two and a half years they've lived in Utah, the Sherpas have experienced many firsts, including using soap in a dishwasher and driving a car. Mika took them into his Draper home to help a friend accomplish his dream.

"There's something about Apa," he said. "He has the most pureness of any soul I've ever met. He's such a good man."

When Apa reaches Everest's summit for the record-breaking 19th time, he'll be in a place he's been more often than anyone else in history. However, it is Tenzing's accomplishment that is truly impressive to the family. Sherpas have been climbing to the world's highest point for years, but this is the family's first college degree.

"It's tough," Mika said of the father missing his son's first graduation. "He's sad. This is a very special moment for them all."

Apa's 18 trips to the 29,035-foot mountain since 1990, including one every year for the past seven, as well as random speaking engagements throughout the state, allow him to put his children through school.

When Apa led his first expedition to the top of Everest in 1990, he did it because his strength and smarts on the mountain could earn him a good living in his homeland. He supported his family with his next 15 ascents as a guide to the peak, responsible for getting groups of people up and down the mountain safely.

A younger son, Pemba Sherpa, 18, will also graduate this year, with honors from Alta High School. He has been working at a local restaurant while taking physics classes at the University of Utah. Dawa, the family's youngest daughter at 14, is in eighth grade. She carries a 4.0 GPA and has won several piano competitions after taking up the instrument less than two years ago.

Mika said knowing that his children are accomplishing so much in his absence will buoy Apa as he misses out on the graduation ceremonies for his children. He said Apa, 49, who has been climbing Everest since age 12, will be uplifted by the spiritual assistance his participation in the current Eco Everest Expedition — formed to bring attention to the significant threat that global warming poses for the Himalayan highlands' indigenous population — offers him.

"I'm so proud of all of them," Mika said. "It's like watching them grow like little flowers." The Sherpa children are working hard to someday return to their homeland to share what they have learned and accomplished.

E-MAIL: wleonard@desnews.com