Alysia Johntson announced the Centennial Celebration of Fort Scott Community College at the Fort Scott Chamber of Commerce weekly coffee Thursday at the college gym.
The school is oldest continually operating community college in Kansas and will celebrate one hundred years of existence September 20 and 21, Johnston told the coffee attendees.
“Fort Scott Community College started in Fort Scott High School in 1919,” Johnston told the coffee attendees.
That move allowed students who wanted to start college, but not have to go out of the community, to attend college, said Mert Barrows, a member of the Centennial Committee.
The college moved to the present site on South Horton Street in 1967, Johnston said.
“Today we provide online degrees and also have one of the best occupational areas around,” Johnston said.
“I was a student here for the 50th anniversary (of the college),” Harold Hicks, Centennial Committee Chairman, said.
“This college has a special place in my heart,” Hicks said. “Several members of the committee are graduates and much of our success in life, the seeds were planted here.”
To celebrate the centennial, there is a banquet and tailgate party planned for the community.
The celebration will kick off Friday evening, September 20, with a banquet for graduates, employees, and their families, according to a press release from FSCC. Saturday afternoon, Sept. 21, will feature a tailgate party at the stadium for all members of the community and conclude with the Homecoming game at 7 p.m.
Other activities planned include the burial of a time capsule, a series of featured articles in the newspaper, display cases around the campus, cake celebration, a video depicting campus activities, and appearances at local fairs and other community events, and other activities in the works, according to the press release.
Fort Scott Community College (then Fort Scott Junior College) was voted into existence on November 8, 1918, in a city-wide election. Rees Hughes, principal at Fort Scott High School, administered the newly formed college with fully qualified teachers to teach a program of consisting of foreign languages, English, mathematics, and science that would be identical to that offered by the University of Kansas, according to the press release.
According to a Fort Scott Tribune article published in April 1918, “By establishing the two years of college work in Fort Scott, it offers an unusual opportunity for students in Fort Scott and Bourbon County and adjacent counties to secure two years of normal school or college work while near home. The work done in the Fort Scott Junior College will be fully accredited at any of the colleges, normal schools or universities of the state,” according to the press release.
Centennial Committee members: Hicks, Barrows, Carolyn Sinn, Valetta Cannon, Bernita Hill, Robert Nelson, Bob Cable, Lori Cable, Rhonda Bailey, Ellen Fairchild, Leslie Damien, Karri Johnson, Marcel Normand and Kassie Feugate-Cate.
Contact person for the Centennial Committee is Harold W. Hicks, haroldh@fortscott.edu, Fort Scott Community College, 2108 South Horton, Fort Scott, Kansas 66701. Tel: 620.223.2700 X3150