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Frequently asked questions about SFCC's history
Written by Debbie Noland, SFCC alumna and author of The Legacy of Plywood U: A History of State Fair Community College, 1966-2002
- According to some sources, SFCC began in 1966. Others say 1968. Which is correct, and why this discrepancy?
Technically, both dates are correct. The junior college district itself was created on April 5, 1966, passing with a simple 51.95 percent majority vote. It is this date that appears on the college’s official seal. However, on May 13 that same year, a group of taxpayers filed an injunction against the district, prohibiting it from collecting taxes, hiring an administrator, or conducting any further business. The case went all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, which upheld the district’s legality, but not until September 1967. Only then could the Board of Trustees, originally elected on April 5, 1966, hire a president and move forward.
The college’s first president, Fred E. Davis, began work December 1, 1967; the college was named “State Fair Community College” on April 10, 1968; the interim facility went up over the summer of 1968; and SFCC opened for classes on Sept. 16, 1968. For purposes of the 40th anniversary celebration, the college is using the 1968 date because that is the year the college was officially named and classes began.
- What was the driving force that created the junior college district?
Two Sedalia public school superintendents, first Heber U. Hunt (1927-1958) and then Thomas J. Norris (1958-1973), advocated a community college for the Sedalia area from the late 1920s into the 1960s. Then, in 1961, the Missouri General Assembly enacted the Junior-College Bill, enabling junior colleges to collect state support separately from other public schools and providing that adjoining school districts could jointly form a junior college district with a simple majority vote. When Bill Hall, then director of the Sedalia Industrial Development Board, touted the economic benefits of higher education and job training at a local business luncheon at the Bothwell Hotel in the mid-‘60s, Dennis Onwiler took his words to heart.
Onwiler was president of the Sedalia Jaycees, a civic group of young businessmen. After a fact-finding mission to the State Board of Education office in Jefferson City, Onwiler convinced the Jaycees to conduct a petition drive to put a proposed junior college district on the ballot for April 5, 1966. With the proposal successfully on the ballot, the Jaycees set out to garner community support for the college. They campaigned relentlessly and at times against great opposition as their commitment to the project stretched into a full year of hard and often thankless work. The junior college district that later became SFCC is the result of their perseverance.
“Young men between the ages of 21 and 35 believed they could change the world,” Onwiler said. Anyone who looks at the SFCC campus today can see that the Sedalia Jaycees did just that.
- How did the college get its name?
In March 1968 President Fred Davis and the Board of Trustees invited district public school students in seventh grade and above to submit potential names in a “Name the College” contest.
It would be significant if the name of the college . . . would immediately identify either geographically or historically with our area,” Davis said at that time. “Our community college, to be truly comprehensive, must serve the entire area, and the name should reflect this.”
In response to their call for names, Davis and the board received five suggestions: Kaysinger Junior College, Queen City Junior College, West Central Missouri Junior College, Dual County Junior College, and State Fair Community College. The trustees settled on the last one, suggested by Smith-Cotton High School sophomore Brenda Weathers. For entering the winning name, Weathers received a two-semester scholarship for $140 to cover tuition and maintenance fees.
- How did the Roadrunner become the college mascot?
Jane Davis Luper, daughter of President Fred Davis and a 1975 SFCC graduate herself, isn’t sure whether she, her mother Margie, or her brother Tom was the first to suggest the Road Runner as SFCC’s mascot. She just remembers sitting around the dinner table listening to her dad talk about how hard it had been to select a mascot. None of the names suggested on the “Name Our Mascot” bulletin board--including “Outlaws” and “Mustangs”--appealed to students.
As a joke, one of the family said to Davis, “How about your favorite cartoon, the Road Runner?” The more the family thought about that choice, the more they liked it. So did the SFCC student body.
We thought we were joking, but the more we thought, the more [the Road Runner’s] appropriateness surprised us; quick, cunning, always in front, outsmarting the competition, with everyone else in relentless (but futile) pursuit,” Luper said. “Somehow, it just stuck.”
- Why is SFCC sometimes called "Plywood U?"
Plywood U” refers to the six temporary pre-fabricated modular buildings joined by a central hallway in which SFCC began classes on Sept. 16, 1968. Fighting wet, windy weather, local architect Neal Reyburn began clearing land and erecting a framework for the buildings barely three months before classes started.
Sporting a sage-green exterior reminiscent of the 1970s, Plywood U gave the college 35,000 square feet of operating space at a cost of $240,000, which the college financed with tax anticipation notes. It featured 17 classrooms, a large student union, a library, a language lab, a bookstore, five administrative offices, and 16 faculty offices. More importantly, it gave the college a central location from which to conduct business and an identity of its own.
Plywood U served SFCC in some capacity until it was demolished over the winter of 1988-1989. Today, the site where Plywood U stood is just an open, grassy, dandelion-spotted area across Clarendon Road from the Missouri State Fairgrounds.
- How did the campus come to have so many trees?
Credit for the many trees growing on the SFCC grounds goes to Don Lamm, a social sciences instructor at SFCC from 1969 to 1998. As the head of the college’s first campus beautification committee, Lamm set out in 1984 to place a thousand trees on campus over a 14-year period. Initially, community donations allowed Lamm and his committee to add trees at a rate of 15-20 per year.
Then, in 1988, Lamm noticed that the college was generating a tremendous number of aluminum soda cans. With administrative approval, he set out to collect these cans and sell them in order to buy more trees. Lamm estimated that he recycled 36,000 cans a year for 11 years for a grand total of 396,000. His efforts earned him the National Arbor Day Foundation’s prestigious Lawrence Enerson Award in 1992.
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