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Home > PBCC History > A Brief Chronicle of PBCC
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The story of Palm Beach Community College
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A determined community launched PBCC on a shoestring
By Toni Wolf
Establishing Florida’s first public two-year college in the depths of the Great Depression may have seemed like folly in 1933. Large government expenditures were out of the question. Still, civic organizations and local citizens lobbied the County Board of Public Instruction to open a two-year public college for the area’s high school graduates who were unable to find employment and couldn’t afford to leave home to attend a university.
County School Superintendent Joe Youngblood and Howell Watkins, principal of Palm Beach High School, consulted with the University of Florida and the Florida State Women’s College (Florida State University) and based the College’s curricula on that of the two universities. Because of the miniscule Depression-era budget, teachers at Palm Beach High School volunteered to teach at the college for free, something unheard of today.
A total of 41 students began classes at the new college adjacent to the high school in downtown West Palm Beach Nov. 14, 1933. Youngblood and Watkins (the first dean of the College) founded and nurtured the fledgling institution until John I. Leonard became PBCC’s first president in 1936. Leonard was affectionately known as “Mr. Junior College” because he was so devoted to the students and dedicated to PBJC and the two-year college system.
College growth forces a move, and war forces another
By 1948, the College had outgrown its original building and moved to Morrison Field, a retired Air Force base used in World War II, where the library was housed in a vast airplane hangar and the Officer’s Club became the perfect Student Union Building. Just three years later, though, the Korean Conflict erupted, and Morrison Field was reactivated. The air base later became Palm Beach International Airport.
So in 1951 Palm Beach Junior College moved yet again, to Lake Park Town Hall, where the quarters were so cramped students had to be turned away, and enrollment dropped significantly to less than 200. Chemistry class was held in the jail. The local media dubbed it “the little orphan college,” but the Lake Park location is remembered fondly by its alumni for the camaraderie that existed there. Master English and Speech Professor Watson B. Duncan taught classes in the nearby church and even in the hallway. Duncan discovered famous actors Burt Reynolds and Monte Markham in Lake Park, as well as Terry Garrity, the author of “The Sensuous Woman.”
Finally, a permanent home
Five years later the Palm Beach County Commission donated 114 acres in Lake Worth to the College, and the state gave PBJC $1 million for buildings. The College finally had a permanent home. Harold C. Manor, Ph.D., became president in 1958, directing extraordinary growth in enrollment, staff, services and course offerings, including many technical and vocational programs.
In 1965, the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the state legislature ordered that the black and white two-year colleges be merged, and the mostly white Palm Beach Junior College and the all-black Roosevelt Junior College became one. Six professors and staff members from Roosevelt were transferred to PBJC, and other faculty members were transferred to the school district. A period of adjustment ensued, and such key figures as Professors Samuel Bottosto and Ed Pugh and Paul Glynn, vice president of student affairs, intervened on behalf of the new students to make them feel welcome.
Three more campuses
In the 1970s and 80s the College established satellite centers, then permanent locations in Belle Glade, Palm Beach Gardens and Boca Raton. Edward M. Eissey, Ph.D., president from 1978 to 1996, was the driving force behind the building boom and the impetus for a name change to Palm Beach Community College in 1988.
Current president Dennis P. Gallon, Ph.D., has expanded the College’s comprehensive mission with more workforce programs and partnerships with business, industry, other educational institutions and various agencies. As a result, PBCC is truly a community college that responds to community needs and serves a critical role in the economic vitality of the area.
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