EL PASO, Texas -- This year's University of Texas at El Paso homecoming celebration was extra special for one woman believed to be the oldest living Miner.

Bertha Toscano, 96, is a graduate of the class of 1933.

"When I first started here there were three or four buildings, I forget, and we were way out in the sticks, way out in the desert," said Toscano.

When she entered college in 1929, it wasn't called UTEP, it wasn't even Texas Western. She attended the Texas College of Mine and Metallurgy.

Bertha Fernandez, as was her name before marrying her husband, majored in Spanish.

"I was very fond in languages, so I studied French and I studied German and I studied Greek," Toscano told KFOX.

And nearly every year since 1933, she has come back to campus from Mexico City for homecoming week. Lately, it has become a bittersweet journey.

"I'm always waiting to see some of my schoolmates and none of them come, I'm the only one, only one left, so I always looking forward to, maybe, maybe somebody will show up," she said.

She is blown away by the growth of the campus since her time here during the Great Depression.

"I look at this place and it's all built up and beautiful, and so it makes me very happy to come back and see everyone," said Toscano.

And how does it make her feel to be UTEP's oldest alumna?

"Well, I feel pretty old," said Toscano.

Toscano said she remembers having great and friendly professors during her time here, and she adds her secret to living a long life is having a full and happy life.