WESTVILLE | Martha Fisher wanted to be a registered nurse.

She worked hard, even through breast cancer, to earn her degree from Purdue University North Central two years ago.

But she never had the chance to take her state licensing exam before succumbing to the disease earlier this year.

When her nursing professor Diane Spoljoric read her obituary, Spoljoric was so bothered there was no RN next to her student's name that she went into action.

The result was the awarding of a posthumous honorary RN license Wednesday at PNC to the mother of four who never gave up.

Michelle Hines, assistant board director of the State Board of Nursing, presented Fisher's common-law husband, Anthony Aldana, and their four children with the framed certificate.

"She had a tenacity that would not quit," Spoljoric said. "She persevered, she came to class, she did her homework, she handed in her papers" in the face of illness and chemotherapy treatments.

"I knew she would be an excellent nurse," Spoljoric said. "She had that caring, the compassion, the love."

Aldana said Fisher left for their children an impressive legacy of dedication.

"It's what she worked for," he said. "She never gave up. She knew she wanted a degree ... knowing she'd never use it."

Spoljoric also presented Aldana with almost $1,000 in campus donations to purchase the headstone for Fisher's grave he had not been able to afford.

The stone, too, will carry the two letters Fisher strove so hard for.

"From this day forward, it is Martha Fisher -- RN," Spoljoric said.