Orange Coast’s Days of Tumbleweeds and Roses

Turning 50 is a significant time for reflection and taking stock, whether you’re a baby boomer or an institution. Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa hit the big Five-O this year, along with another huge milestone--1 million students over that half century.

As part of its yearlong anniversary celebration, the college has offered up a new version of an old book: “Tumbleweeds to Roses: A History of Orange Coast College.”

The book was produced in the mid-1960s as a special retirement gift for its founding president, Basil H. Peterson. Only 500 copies were printed, and over the next three decades precious few of them have remained around. Until now.

I read the 300-page book the other day without ever leaving my office. The college has put the whole thing on the Internet--foreword, dedication, credits and all 20 chapters.

It’s not just a history of how to create a junior college from scratch. It’s a wealth of detail on a significant part of this county’s past.

Orange Coast, some of you may well remember, sits on what was known as the Santa Ana Army Air Base during World War II. It was used to train 5,000 aviation cadets. Thelma Harwood, Peterson’s former secretary, wrote a marvelous chapter about life on the base then. She recalled that her office on campus was in the same building that once housed her husband’s training headquarters.

The war played a significant role in the college’s development. The buildings remaining after the base shut down in 1946 provided a ready-made campus. Also, there was a huge push for more colleges, to see to it that war veterans got a chance at an education.

Local educators from the Huntington Beach and Newport high school districts led the drive for the new college. But there were numerous obstacles: The military first offered the land to USC and the University of California (who turned it down) and there was talk of a military-type college. There also was a mind-boggling bureaucracy in Washington called the

War Assets Administration to deal with.

But local leaders were not to be deterred. In 1947, even before securing a deal with the federal government, they formed a district, hired Peterson and set up shop at Newport Harbor High School. Peterson’s first duties were to head to Washington to secure the college’s future.

Two of the primary forces were Sidney H. Davidson, superintendent of the Newport Beach High School District, and Raymond M. Elliott, his Huntington Beach counterpart. A chapter they wrote together indicates there was so much red tape involved in acquiring government property, it’s astonishing that it all came together. But the new community college district finally managed to acquire 243 of the 900 acres of the old military base. Once an agreement was reached, students started classes on campus the fall of 1948.

Davidson and Elliott wrote: “Anyone less astute and determined could not possibly have succeeded as we had; and anyone more intelligent would never even have tried.”

One insightful chapter on the first faculty was written by one of its literary professors, Elmo E. Shaver. Shaver, from St. Louis, wrote that he got the appointment without ever having been to the campus. So he asked his mother, who lived in Long Beach, to take a tour and report back. She wrote him: “It doesn’t look like much now, but perhaps something can be made of it.”

Orange Coast has grown from its first 421 students to more than 25,000 annually. The first graduation was held in what had been the military’s theater, since torn down.

Here’s the Web site: www.occ.cccd.edu Go to its “College Information” section, then to the “50th Anniversary.”

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Title Searching: How the book got its name: When the first students hit the makeshift campus in 1948, it was covered with tumbleweeds. And the roses part--maybe you don’t recall that Orange Coast College once had a darned good football team. In 1963 it won the Junior Rose Bowl game--held in Pasadena at the Rose Bowl--and with it the national junior college title. The bowl game and the championship are no longer around.

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Home Study: Here is another Web site worthy of your time: www.ocpl.org That one’s for the Orange County Public Library system. It has details on all the library’s 27 branches and their special activities. But beyond that, it’s loaded with information on how your youngsters can use the Internet to assist their education.

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Beginning Opera: After I wrote the other day about New York opera star Deborah Voigt being honored by her native Placentia, I heard from Paula Selleck, media director at Cal State Fullerton. Selleck reminded me that Voigt spent four years studying music at Cal State Fullerton, from 1981-85. She left to accept a scholarship to the San Francisco Opera’s program for young singers. Selleck wrote me: “Voigt last performed on campus in the title role of Donna Anna in [our] 1985 production of ‘Don Giovanni,’ a role she later reprised on tour with the Western Opera Theater.”

Voigt also was honored by Cal State Fullerton last year at its annual Vision & Visionaries celebration.

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Wrap-Up: “Tumbleweeds to Roses” isn’t something you would confuse with Hemingway or Faulkner. But what it may lack in style it makes up in substance.

I had no idea, for example, that there had been a prisoner of war camp at the base during World War II. Some of its inmates had been Nazi soldiers with Gen. Erwin Rommel. Also, to me there is a sense of excitement at reading the words of those who were there at the beginning of something important. Former Assistant Supt. William F. Kimes wrote in one chapter: “One day only the memories of the students and faculty from 1948-49 will recall the army buildings that made possible this great institution.”

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823, by fax at (714) 966-7711 or by e-mail at jerry.hicks@latimes.com