A Bermuda great-grandmother has just completed her Bachelor of Science degree in cosmetology.

And Mrs. Dorothy Matthews said she is not ready to drop out of school just yet.

"I'm not stopping now,'' the active 70-year-old said. "I'm going for my Masters and Doctorate.'' Mrs. Matthews, who has been fixing hairdos for more than 50 years, said she has seen styles come full circle but finds there is still a new thing or two she can learn.

So despite years of advanced beauty courses in North America and Europe, she enrolled in the Dudley Cosmetology University in North Carolina in 1989. In February, she received her degree.

Although she has 13 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, Mrs. Matthews was not the oldest woman in her graduating class. One of her classmates was 76.

"All my life I've been combing all the neighbours' hair,'' said Mrs.

Matthews, who started as a teenager pressing and curling in her grandmother's Paget home.

In 1953, she graduated with honours from Apex College Beauty School in New York City, and she has been learning, teaching, fixing hair, and performing facials, manicures and pedicures ever since.

She brought hair weaving to Bermuda in 1960 and today runs Dottie's Unisex Beauty Centre on King Street North. Mrs. Matthews is also a practical nurse and a certified trichologist -- a specialist in hair and scalp diseases.

And hairdressing was not her major interest. "The reason why I got so involved in it was that I wanted to be a music teacher,'' she said. "I thought that by doing hair I'd get enough money to go to England to study music.'' And she recently completed her Grade 6 in music theory through the London School of Music.

An usher at Vernon Temple AME Church in Southampton for 25 years, she also teaches hairdressing to women prisoners one day a week.

Of Mrs. Matthews' four children, her youngest son Cornel has followed in her footsteps. He is a hair weave technician.

STILL LEARNING -- Mrs. Dorothy Matthews, 70, receives her Bachelor of Science degree from Mr. Alfred Dudley of Dudley Cosmetology University in North Carolina.