Merced College is collecting memories. Your memories.
With 50 years of history to draw on, and with anniversary celebrations planned for the fall and next spring, the college is encouraging its former students and others to post their memories on a Facebook page.
Local teacher and Blue Devil alumnus Gary Arzamendi has created the site, "You know you go to Merced College when" for those who wish to share their personal stories and experiences about the community college.
With literally hundreds of thousands of residents who've either taken classes at the college over the years, or who've attended sporting events, enjoyed plays and musical performances, the site will provide a repository of the community's collective memories.
Everyone has a story to tell.
Former Merced City Councilwoman Michele Gabriault- Acosta, who was a cheerleader in the early '70s, remembers getting hurt at a football game.
"The first time I met Les McCabe was at a football game in Reedley. It was Halloween night and some joker lobbed an egg into the stadium. I was the lucky one who got hit in the face.
"Les was one of the athletic trainers then, and he laid me on a bench and picked eggshells out of my eye. I ended up with one hell of a shiner, and Les and I have been friends since."
The college is also compiling a list of its historical milestones. Of course, most everyone knows that the college district was founded in 1962 and that its first classes were held at the Merced County Fairgrounds in September 1963. But you may not know that the Fair Board leased those buildings to the new college for 5 cents a square foot.
Did you know that the students voted for the college's blue and gold colors and the Blue Devil mascot in 1963?
Did you know that the first athletic programs established that year were baseball, golf, volleyball and wrestling and that the football program began 1965?
Or, did you know that the first athletic trophy was given to the men's basketball team after winning the 1963 Pacific Invitational Tournament in Stockton?
Or that the golf team won first place in its division in 1964?
Those early years provided many firsts, including the election of the first student body in February 1964 and the first commencement exercises that summer, in which 35 students were awarded degrees.
That year was also when grading and other preparations began for the construction of the present campus on Yosemite Avenue.
The campus was completed three years later and a communitywide dedication ceremony was held on April 23, 1967.
The Student Union building opened in 1967, and between 1968 and 1969 several facilities were added, including the gymnasium, auto shop, agriculture facilities, and technical labs for drafting, engineering and nursing. In 1970, the Music and Fine Arts complex opened.
In 1971, voice instructor Bill Pitzer took the Merced College Choir on a performance tour of Europe. The choir also produced an album of recorded music.
The first Los Banos Campus, called the Westside Center, opened in 1972, and the Lesher Library and Theater complex were completed the next year.
In 1978, the Blue Devils football, baseball and basketball teams won their Division I championships, and in 1980 the women's volleyball team won its first Division I championship.
The college entered a new phase in its history when it embarked on a major construction schedule to build education facilities after passage of local bond Measures H and J in 2002. Among those projects was the completion of a Learning Resources Center, the downtown Business Resource Center, an Allied Health Center, the Los Banos Campus and many infrastructure improvements and renovations to buildings.
The list can go on.
Victorian Thomas Carlyle remarked that "The whole of the past is the procession of the present."
As the present rolls into the future, Merced College invites you to reminisce with us.
-- Merced College
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