She can't sing and she has difficulty speaking, but Carol Clemens can still do what she loves most -- play the organ.

Diagnosed less than two years ago with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease, Clemens, 71, continues to serve as the music director at St. Mark's Catholic Church in Boynton Beach, a position she has held for 25 years. She rehearses daily and plays the organ at six Masses each weekend.

Clemens recently fulfilled a lifelong dream to earn her college degree. She completed all the requirements necessary for a bachelor's degree in organ performance at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, an achievement 50 years in the making. Her application missed the fall deadline, but she hopes to have the actual diploma in hand shortly.

"I started college in 1952 at Southwestern College, now Rhodes in Memphis, but quit two years later to get married and raise a family," said Clemens, who moved to South Florida in the early 1960s. "When I was in my 40s, I was desperate for input into my musical abilities, so I went to FAU and finished all my academics."

But with only one requirement left to receive her degree -- a one-hour organ recital -- Clemens gave up.

"I chickened out at the thought of the recital," she said. "I knew it took intense practicing five or six hours a day, and I ... had begun serving at St. Mark's. But those were excuses; I really just chickened out."

Finally, a year and a half ago, Clemens began taking the steps necessary toward completing that final obligation, and she presented a recital at St. Gregory's Episcopal Church in Boca Raton in November. She credits her accomplishment to the encouragement and help of Diana Akers, an adjunct professor of organ at FAU.

"I'd been saying for 10 years, 'I don't want to die without a degree.'" Clemens said. "I talked to the head of the department and had a super, super teacher -- Diana."

Akers said Clemens has been a great source of inspiration.

"Despite the diagnosis of ALS, she has continued to pursue her life's dreams; this is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching -- sharing this journey of personal fulfillment with the individual," said Akers, who worked with Clemens for a year to prepare for her recital. "I greatly respect and admire her."

Though ALS, a progressive chronic disease of the spinal cord nerves responsible for stimulating muscles, has limited her speech and forced her to walk with a slight limp, Clemens remains upbeat.

"I have medication that keeps the symptoms at bay, and my doctor says my progress is surprising in that it's been slow," she said. Clemens first started experiencing symptoms three years ago, when she noticed that a scratchy, hoarse throat would not clear up.

"I went to the doctor and didn't find anything out, and then about two years ago, I went to a neurologist. But even then, it took three months to get the diagnosis. It takes a long time to diagnose ALS because they have to rule out about 12 other diseases," she said. "It got to me at first, and I lost my sense of humor for a while, but I got out of it and I figured, nothing ventured, nothing gained."

Clemens feels becoming a musician was her destiny.

Born in Missouri, one of four daughters of a conservative Presbyterian minister, Clemens began taking piano lessons at age 6. She later learned to play the organ and harpsichord.

"There were four of us girls, and my father's rule was that you had to start piano at 6," said Clemens, who played piano with a partner for two years at such venues as the Delray Beach Playhouse and First Presbyterian Church in West Palm Beach and served as organist/choirmaster for Calvary Methodist Church in Lake Worth.

"All of my sisters have played in church and one still does," Clemens said.

The Rev. Mark Szanyi, pastor at St. Mark's, said Clemens is a special person.

"She's very courageous, a great woman," he said. "She plays for the Masses, the choir, the children's Masses, funerals, weddings -- she does it all."

While music remains her greatest passion, Clemens fancies herself as somewhat of an adventurer.

She raced sports cars in the early 1960s, has done quite a bit of scuba diving, creates ceramic pieces at her own pottery wheel and travels throughout the world.

Now that she's about to get her long-awaited sheepskin, Clemens is not about to stop learning.

This month, she began classes at FAU with her next goal in mind -- earning a master's degree.

"It will take two years, if I last that long," she said. "I love French organ music, so I'll probably do my independent studies on the French organists."