College Has Her Number, Student Finds : Honors Graduate Becomes 500,000th to Enter Rancho Santiago

Sherry Ann Southard, an honors graduate of Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills, said she had looked over her options and decided that Rancho Santiago College was the best place for her to start her higher education.

What she didn’t realize, she said Monday, was that her decision would lead to instant fame. On Monday, as cameras clicked and reporters asked questions, Southard officially was logged as the Santa Ana-based community college’s half-millionth student since its founding in 1915. It was called Santa Ana College before its name was changed in 1985.

Southard knew before the press conference that she had become the 500,000th student enrolled. “I was at cheerleading camp in Santa Barbara earlier this summer, and I got an urgent message to call at once--urgent, urgent,” she said. “I thought maybe my mother had died. But when I called (the college official), he told me, ‘We just want to give you an award.’ I thought it was really neat.”

Already a Big Fan

Southard, 18, is a new member of Rancho Santiago College’s Pep Squad, having tried out and won a slot for the squad last spring, even before graduating from high school.

She thus already is a big fan of the community college, although just beginning her classes there. And her extemporaneous comments to reporters Monday morning were full of praise for community colleges in general and Rancho Santiago College in particular. Rancho Santiago Chancellor-President Robert Jensen stood near the new student and beamed as she easily fielded questions from reporters and explained why she chose that community college.

“This college was recommended to me by high school teachers and friends,” Southard said. “I want to be an English teacher, and I want to get a good background to pass on to students I’ll be teaching one day. And I was told that you just don’t get it any better than you get it here. And it’s close to my home (in Anaheim Hills), especially the Orange campus. It’s very beautiful there, and it’s expanding.

“That new campus is growing, and it’s showing me that if the school can grow, it’s encouraging the students to grow. . . . I’m looking forward to having a good experience here, and I know I will. I hear the faculty is very fine.”

‘I Had No Qualms’

Southard said she plans to complete her first two years of college at Rancho Santiago and then transfer to UCLA.

She noted that the UC system, more than ever, is encouraging high school graduates to start at community colleges, then transfer. “I had no qualms about coming here,” she said.

While a public relations agency could have hardly found a more articulate spokesperson for the community college, Rancho Santiago officials said Southard’s enrollment as the 500,000th student came essentially by random choice. “It was as random as we could make it while trying to ensure we had a representative student,” said Henry Kertman, public information officer for the college. “We didn’t go on a talent search. But we did want to make sure that the 500,000th student was a full-time student and lived in the district.”

Southard will get a plaque from the college trustees to denote her standing as the official half-millionth student.

But in a joking comment to Chancellor-President Jensen, Southard said, “Now, what I’d really like is a parking place.”

John Dowden, president of the trustees and himself a Rancho Santiago student in the 1950s, noted that some things never change at the venerable community college. “Parking is still as difficult to find,” he said.