Page 27 - some-stuff-i-wrote-and-some-stuff-i-didn't-(2011)-h-morris-williams

Some Stuff I Wrote and Some Stuff I Didn't (2011) H. Morris Williams

Column April 1, 2007

HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY. LCCC!

This year Lake City Community College is celebrating its 60th anniversary,
1947-2007, so this is a good tim e for a quick glance back at how it all
started.

In 1947, tim ber was our greatest natural resource and a group of local
men were concerned there was a shortage of well-trained forest rangers
who could care for our timberlands and be sure they would be well-tended
into the distant future.

Acting on their concern, these private citizens organized themselves and
elected officers to carry out their mission: Start a Forest Ranger School in
Lake City. They chose Gordon Granger as President, Frank Oosterhoudt
as Vice President, James B. Hodges as Secretary, and G. Allen Summerall
as Treasurer.

N
Working together they and others organized “The Columbia Forest Ranger
School” , only the second of its kind in the nation. They got the best
faculty and equipment they could find and soon the fledgling school was
attracting students from all over the nation. The Forest Ranger School
was a success from the outset.

Then, two years later these civic and CFRS leaders accomplished another
major landmark. They got the University of Florida to “adopt” the school
and it became Florida’s State Forest Ranger School.

In 1962, the campus added Lake City Junior College and became Lake
City Junior College and Forest Ranger School, later Lake City Community
College.

All of those original officers and the seven members of the Board of
Directors-Leon Mathis, Gordon Newton, Lem Owens, L.R. Sanders, J.Y.
Wilson, Walter Hackney, and Jack Phillips-- are now dead but what they
started in 1947 continues to thrive at LCCC these 60 tears later--and so
do our forests.

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