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Welcome to the North Platte Traveler Magazine Online - Fall/Winter 2002

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North Platte Traveler Magazine Fall 2002 Issue

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MPCC Timeline

1950s: The University of Nebraska considers a branch campus in North Platte; the idea was later dropped.

December 1960: The North Platte Board of Education begins to study steps necessary to organize a junior college district

November 14, 1961: Voters approve of a junior college district by a 2-1 margin, but then turn down two bond issues for a new building.

July 3, 1964: The federal government transfers title to the former post office-federal building at Fifth and Jeffers to the Junior College District.

1964: A legislative study determined that North Platte should be first priority for a vocational-technical school.

August 29, 1965: There is an open house to show off the remodeled building.

August 31, 1965: Classes begin. The North Platte Junior College was supported entirely by taxpayers in School District 1 and governed by the North Platte Board of Education.

1965: Bill approved to provide for the establishment of trade schools, along with a bill providing for some state aid for such schools. The Mid-Plains Vocational-Technical School opened in the old Carnegie Library on North Jeffers and a Cohagen warehouse on East Front Street.

1971: The Legislature begins to develop a plan to merge vocational-technical schools and junior colleges.

May 16, 1971: The first building on the new Mid-Plains Voc-Tech campus was dedicated.

1972: The late Janet McDonald left a major portion of her estate to the district for construction of an academic college building.

July 1973: The Legislature approves LB759, which connected every county in the state to one of six community-college areas. Also created the Nebraska Community College Association, a state association of community colleges but not a statewide governing body.
McCook Junior College was renamed McCook Community College and also merged North Platte Junior College with the Mid-Plains Vocational-Technical College.
The legislation also brought McCook Community College and the newly formed Mid-Plains Community College together to become the Mid-Plains Technical Community College Area.

December 1974: The partially completed McDonald-Belton building was first used.

February 23, 1975: Dedication of the McDonald-Belton building

1975: Passage of LB344 returned the community colleges to local control and provided for a service-area mill levy.

1999: Mid-Plains Community College Area Board of Governors voted to sell the old Post Office building in North Platte. It had housed MPCC administration offices since the completion of the McDonald-Belton campus. Those offices were relocated to the campuses.

Today: With distance-learning technology, the college is able to span its educational opportunities over the entire service area.

Chadron State College has expanded its service area to include McCook and has opened an office on the McDonald-Belton campus in North Platte.

Mid-Plains Community College
Area - North Platte Campuses”
Becoming a reality

Many North Platte residents can't remember a time when there wasn't a community college in North Platte.
However, three retired instructors in North Platte remember that first year of school in August 1965 and the excitement and pride everyone felt to finally have a junior college become a reality.
"It was kind of fun being on the ground floor and starting the college," said Virgil Nelson, who taught in the math department that first year.

Nelson had taught several years at Arcadia High School before moving to North Platte to teach at the college.
Boyd Gentry taught the sciences.

"Those were the fun years. I was young, ambitious and really into teaching. Everyone worked hard to enhance the status of the college and to attract good students," Gentry said.
He remembered those first students as being dedicated and hard-working young people.
Gentry had taught at Adams Junior High and North Platte High School and in Oregon before taking his position with North Platte Junior College.
Eloise Schwab taught five years at Bayard High School before moving to North Platte to teach the secretarial program at the new college.

"The faculty was a close-knit group. That was one of the good things about

starting together; everyone was in on something new," Schwab said.

That first year probably 80 percent of the students came from the immediate area, recalled Nelson. About 95 percent or more were just out of high school. It would be a few years until the non-traditional student would begin taking full-time classes during the day.
There were 225 students in that first freshman class, Nelson said.
"They were really enthusiastic about college and had a real college spirit. They got a basketball team going that first year," Nelson said.

A first-year basketball team wasn't planned, but a teacher at the high school offered to coach the team. Games were played at the high school gym.
The team won only one game that year, Nelson said.
It wouldn't be until 1975, when the east part of the McDonald-Belton building was completed, that the team would have its own gymnasium.
The college also had its own newspaper that was published every Friday. Until about 1972, the college also had an annual.
"As people got busier and busier," Nelson said, "those things went by the wayside."
Nelson also remembered students referring to the school as North Platte's Old Post Office University and even had decals made for students' car windows.
Schwab compared teaching then and today by noting that more visual aids are used today. Plus the workload has lessened today.
"Not as many kids worked after college as they do today," she said, "and study habits have changed in high school and that carries over to college."
Today, said Gentry, a large majority of the student body is made up of older students trying to get back into the workforce.
The biggest gripe, Nelson said, was over parking spaces.
"They wanted to park close and would park where they shouldn't and got ticketed," Nelson said. Of course, the second year, when there was a freshman and a sophomore class, that meant 450 to 500 students were vying for the limited parking spaces.
Schwab summed up her 32 years at the college: "It was something I enjoyed doing. I felt I had an important job at the time and I got to see a lot of students enter the business world. Some are still around today and doing very well."

Visit Mid Plains Community College online to learn more.

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