WNCC 2010 Self-Study Report - Western Nebraska Community ...

Introduction
A yellowed newspaper photograph from 1966 displays a group of young men and women surrounding a
sign. Two pose with shovels in hand, having just planted a marker declaring that the spot on which they
stand will one day become the home of their proud creation: Scotts Bluff County College. The photograph
features no College administrator or even local businessmen. No one wears a suit. Pictured instead are
the faithful, motivated members of two volunteer Student Action Committees who really saved their faltering
institution and created the basis for the community college which still thrives today. Through their own
initiative and on their own time, working under the guidance of an eager young faculty member, they
canvassed the surrounding counties to coalesce support to sustain their college, which had begun in 1926,
faltered, and then reopened again in 1929. They marched, called people, and campaigned at local events
and County Commissioner meetings. They held rallies and parades and made news. Not everyone,
including some local politicians, backed their initiative to refashion their college into a new, independent
entity, but they persisted, nonetheless.
In 1965, the future looked extraordinarily bleak for the local college after a four-year liberal arts Parson’s
“satellite school” had recently opened. Fortunately, the steadfast students kept the doors of their junior
college open by getting it converted to a county entity and by gaining the passage of a $1.7 million dollar
bond issue (a prodigious feat now, much less nearly a half-century ago). Only a few years after the
grassroots effort of the Student Action Committee members, the four-year school had closed, although
some of the students stayed in the area and now send their children, and sometimes themselves, back to
the community college which survived the threat of closure. The photograph underscores the success of
these students to maintain their college, and that tradition and spirit still pervades this small, rural college
45 years hence.