The Anniversary 50 Project

Our second session started with a report from members of the research team.  They spent most of Wednesday at the San Jacinto campus, sifting through huge scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. Sandi Colby had this to say:

And the research begins...

 On Wednesday, Gilbert and I made the first of many trips to the San Jacinto campus to dig into the glorious history of MSJC. Our exploration began in the Administrative Building which houses an extensive collection of newspaper articles that follow the school from the time it was just a concept through the events of today as they unfold. The following information is a very brief outline of the first couple years. The MSJC college district was born in December of 1961 when representatives from the communities of Banning, Beaumont, Cabazon, San Jacinto, and Hemet met and voted to create it. Spring of 1962 saw the election of the original Board of Trustees for the fledgling junior college. In March of 1963 Mr. Milo Johnson left the Imperial Valley district, which he had built, and joined MSJC as President. The first classes were held in September of 1963 and were only offered in the evening at both the Beaumont and San Jacinto High Schools. There was a lot of disagreement within the district over the decision to begin classes without a permanent campus and buildings; some people wanted to rent a peice of land from the San Jacinto High School and set up mobile classrooms, others wanted to wait until the actual campus was built before classes started (which would have pushed classes back to at least 1965), other people were just worried about sending their children to sub-standard classes and wanted to keep sending their children to schools in other districts such as Riverside and San Bernardino. Once the question of when classes were to start was answered, the next bone of contention became where the new campus was going to be permanently located. Mr. Johnson and the Board tried to find the most suitable location that was centrally located for all attending students. Beginning with five locations, various factors such as location, flooding issues and cost whittled the choice down to two 160 acre parcels-- the Wolfskill property and the Quandt Ranch property. The owner of the Quandt Ranch offered the district half of the 160 acres free with the purchase of the additional half. After the initial $3 million bond vote to raise money for the new campus ended with a firm no, the Wolfskill property fell out of the running because the owner of the Quandt Ranch offered his entire property to the district free of charge, and he offered to pay for some of the costs involved with bringing utilities onto the land--a very generous gift! The first couple years in MSJC history can easily be described as turbulent-- many people had different opinions about how each detail should be handled. Fortunatley, Mr. Johnson had the experience and drive to keep pushing forward no matter what happened.  I can't wait to see how the rest of this story unfolds...

Thank you Sandi for a great report. Just to let you know, we have started a Facebook page and invite everyone to check us out and comment if you feel the urge.