A group of beaming graduates will march into Sun Devil Stadium on May 13 and stand proudly before a crowd of more than 60,000 people, but they won’t be waiting to get their diplomas.

Their diplomas are already displayed prominently on walls or tucked away in drawers — and they have been for the last 50 years.

More than 60 ASU graduates from 1959 — the first class to graduate from ASU after its name change from Arizona State College at Tempe and the first group to ever celebrate commencement in Sun Devil Stadium — will return to lead ASU’s 2009 graduates into the arena.

“My biggest memory of ASU is the night of the big rally in front of the Memorial Union,” Betsy Todd, 72, of Phoenix said. She is referring to election night in 1958 when the Arizona State community learned that Proposition 200 had passed and it was to be renamed Arizona State University.

Todd, a ’59 graduate, is returning to celebrate the “Golden Reunion” with 13 of her closest friends from ASU.

“We’ve known each other for 50 years,” she said. “We’ve just gotten closer and closer since college.”

Todd’s group, of which she is the unofficial ringleader, will join several other 1959 graduates for two days of alumni events.

Many of those returning for commencement were instrumental in fighting for the name change, which was signed into law in January of 1959.

“I carried a petition and got signatures,” Todd said. The name change was one of the most significant events in then-president Grady Gammage’s career. The 1959 commencement was the last for Gammage, who died that year in December, after his 27-year stint as the school’s president.

Tom Shaffer, 72, a 1959 graduate and member of the event’s planning committee, said 1,352 students graduated that year, and a significant number of them are attending commencement this May.

“They’re giving us gowns to wear and we’ll actually lead the procession into the stadium,” he said. “It’s quite an honor.”

Shaffer was active in student government during his years at ASU and said a number of those returning were also involved.

“Almost every [graduate] we talk to still points out how they were the first ones to have ‘university’ on their diplomas and how proud they are,” Shaffer said.

For many, the memory won’t fade anytime soon.

“I remember everybody chanting ‘ASU’ and they were carrying torches up to ‘A Mountain,’” Todd said, describing a jubilant scene she and her husband, then a campus police officer, watched and participated in. “This whole big crowd left and we were just standing there by ourselves. I’ve never forgotten that moment.”

Todd, who still returns to ASU periodically, said 1959 graduates have a bond that other classes don’t.

“Everybody was like one unit wanting so badly for something to happen,” she said. “You just bonded with everyone.”

Shaffer said returnees are ecstatic to lead in a crowd of graduates who will be addressed by President Barack Obama, an honor they didn’t expect.

“The fact that ASU in its entire history has never had a president speak at its commencement is a big deal,” he said. “It’s very exciting.”

Alumni Association Executive Director Jenny Holsman said all returning 1959 graduates will be inducted into the Golden Circle, a group of ASU alumni who have returned after at least 50 years.

The group will hold a candlelight ceremony around Kachina Fountain in front of Old Main. Since its creation in the ‘60s, thousands of alumni have been inducted 50 years after their original ASU graduations.

“The [1959] graduates get to meet with outstanding [2009] graduates,” Holsman said. “It’s a bridging between current students and those who graduated in 1959.”

Director of the planning group and Alumni Association Senior Program Coordinator Cindy Dick said the returning graduates’ excitement has spread to those at the Alumni Association.

“They’re so passionate about ASU and about coming back to be at commencement,” Dick said. “We’re all just so excited about it.”

Todd, who was recently featured on the cover of an alumni magazine about ASU’s 50th anniversary, said she is prouder than ever to be an ASU graduate.

“When I saw it I just said, ‘I’m a cover girl at age 71, I’m finally a cover girl!”

Todd described a recent trip she took to the Tempe campus, illustrating how she and a friend wandered the campus and asked several students for directions.

“It made me a little choked up to see how young they were helping us girls in our senior years,” she said. “ASU has grown so much. I’m so proud of the students who will graduate this year.”

Reach the reporter at tessa.muggeridge@asu.edu.