College celebrates golden anniversary

Mt. Hood Community College will be holding special events, starting this month and continuing through the summer, in honor of its ‘Golden Anniversary’ to celebrate 50 years as an institution.

First among the special celebrations will be the Golden Anniversary Gala and Auction, to be held April 23 in the Yoshida Event Center. Many alumni are expected to attend.

A lot has changed since the early 1960s, and the events will highlight that fact.

Before the school was constructed, the ground surrounding the campus was used as a strawberry field, for which the present-day Strawberry Short Course Festival is named after, said MHCC President Debbie Derr.

“When you look at some of the older pictures of the college, (the school) was nothing but (a) field… They (early settlers) logged it and then they planted cabbage and strawberries,” she said.

Tricycle races were held by the Mt. Hood pond in the 1970s: Students would ride tricycles down a hill, down a ramp that would curl upward and direct the riders into MHCC’s pond.

“We can’t do that now, of course. There would be a big liability issue,” said Derr.

The character of the school has changed over the years, through technology, faculty and demographics of the people living around the college.

“Students have changed a lot. If you go back to the early years, there was very little diversity. People that lived out here tended to be very middle-class,” said Derr. “I look at how students and demographics have changed. I think it’s one of the greatest opportunities we have – to embrace that, and to work with those communities, so our students are successful.

“Back in 1966, we were very white. There were far more men going to school than women, there were far more middle-class students than the students that are financially needy now,” Derr continued. “There are lots that have changed, but all those changes center around who students are.”

She also mentioned technology that wasn’t around back then: some forms of transportation and how the Internet wasn’t around.

First of the celebrations will be the April 23 Gala and Auction.

In June, campus officials will dig up a time capsule left from students, staff, faculty, and members of the community in 1966. The capsule will be unveiled on June 18, the day of this year’s Strawberry Short Course festival. Derr said the school is planning to create a 2016 time capsule that will be reburied with “instructions to the future” to be dug up in another 50 years.

Another MHCC Foundation Gala will be held in September to honor a group of 50 “diamond” alumni.

“We’ll be looking at people who have made a mark in the world and went to Mt. Hood Community College,” said Derr. The September gala may also be a fundraiser for the school, but plans for that haven’t been confirmed.

Derr’s vision for Mt. Hood, looking forward, is to “be the best community college in the world” and for the school to be more diverse than it was when it first started, she said.

Throughout the next year, students should expect to see more updates on the 50-year anniversary web page, as well as posters around the school that promote events.