After 49 years away, dropout Jimmy Jam receives honorary diploma from Minneapolis Washburn High School

Minneapolis-reared producer/songwriter extraordinaire Jimmy Jam has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He’s won five Grammys and many other awards.

On Friday, he received a new first in his storied career: a high school diploma, and an honorary one at that.

The diploma was presented as part of the 100th anniversary celebration at Washburn High School in south Minneapolis. Principal Emily Lilja Palmer introduced James Samuel Harris III of the class of 1977 as one of Washburn’s most famous and accomplished students.

But he dropped out after his junior year, moved on to the Free School and departed for a music career before graduating.

When Jam accepted his diploma in a leather-bound folder Friday, he explained he had an orange necktie in a closet that he’d never worn before. Washburn’s school colors are orange and blue.

“I couldn’t think of a better place to wear orange, right?” he said. “This school was the foundation of my music.”

Not only did the music come from the classroom but from Jam’s counselor, who had a piano in his office. “Let’s just say I spent a lot of time in the counselor’s office,” he admitted. “All my first songs came from that.”

But he recalled her saying to him: “As long as I see you really going for it, it’s OK with me.”

“That was in 1977,” Jam said. “In 1987, she was my date for the Grammys. My feeling was she never got to see me walk across the graduation stage but she did get to see me walk across the Grammy stage, which in a way was a bit of a graduation. Tonight, I know she’s watching from her skybox above.”

After the ceremony, Jam was glowing. He showed the diploma to his father, 98-year-old Cornbread Harris.

“It feels surreal,” he told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “This is something that I never expected. Even when I got the call that they wanted to do something, it still wasn’t real to me. And having Cornbread here for it, it was the best. And it was great to be back in the school; I haven’t been back in the school since I quit in ’76.”

Jam, 66, said the Washburn diploma ranked at the top of the awards he’s won in his celebrated career with musical partner Terry Lewis.

Jam was excited to run into two former classmates — one who played trumpet in Jam’s nighttime gigging band in his Washburn days, and another with whom he played youth football and baseball, for which Jam’s father was coach.

There was a bit of irony with the whole high school diploma thing.

“Terry [Lewis] said today, ‘You’re doing it backwards. You already have an honorary doctorate from Monmouth University because you spoke at their commencement. Now you’ve got a high school diploma.’”

Among many accomplishments, Jam and Lewis have produced 16 No. 1 pop songs for Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Human League and others, ranking them fourth all-time behind Max Martin (25), George Martin (23) and Dr. Luke (18). The Minneapolis-launched producing duo also has accounted for more than two dozen No. 1 R&B songs.

Palmer reached out to Jam two years ago when the Washburn staff began planning the centennial celebration. In the course of the conversation, she learned that he’d never received a diploma.