As Southeastern Community College celebrates its 100th anniversary, we reflect way back to the beginning, when the Burlington School Board introduced Burlington Junior College (BJC). Who was the first graduating class? What did they do with their education?
Apollo High School was the first site of BJC. Forty-four students registered that first year, with twelve stellar students graduating in 1922. Of those students, eight became educators — five of whom worked lengthy tenures in the Burlington school system. Nearly half of that first graduating class taught two and even three generations of students who became the politicians, business professionals, and writers of the 20th century. This inaugural class set the bar for quality grads of the future.
The class included Eva Anderson, Daisy Covall, Gordon Engstrom, Helen Fehse, Edith Hamm, Edwin Lotz, Mary Palmer, Soma Pilger, Janet Robinson, Claire Shaw, Ada Snyder, and Carl Stiegel.
Eva Anderson taught piano throughout her life in Iowa and Minnesota. She spent her retirement in Burlington.
Frances Chamberlain taught dance in Burlington before doing the same at the Grand Island Conservatory in Nebraska. She married a Seattle pianist, Charles Spaulding, who had spent time on the conservatory staff.
Edith Hamm and Helen Fehse moved on to Iowa Wesleyan College (IWC) in Mount Pleasant. The pair spent their careers teaching in the Burlington system.
Hamm was a librarian at Horace Mann Middle School. Upon retirement at age 65, she became a peace activist and, among other things, made time to protest the Vietnam War. Fehse, who once competed in a beauty pageant sponsored by the Chicago Tribune, taught English and mathematics.
After graduating from BJC, Edwin Lotz also continued his education at IWC. He subsequently attended the University of Iowa and Northwestern University. Lotz became a long-time history teacher at BHS, starting in 1926 and completing his career in 1965 at Burlington Junior College.
Soma Pilger married Harold Toothacre, and lived all her married life behind Saunderson School, the second home of Burlington Junior College. Her husband was the public school district’s in-house dentist and, one can imagine, the butt of a thousand jokes.
Claire Shaw taught for a few years in southwest Iowa before returning to Burlington as an educator.
Ada Snyder taught English for many years in Burlington before marrying Dr. James Kubis. In an era when women rarely taught after they married, she left her career and moved to Kentucky with her husband.
And Carl Stiegel, the class president, made his way to the executive suite at the Atlantic Refining Co. in Philadelphia. The company is better known as Arco.
The second junior college in Iowa, BJC was regarded as an experiment upon its founding.
“Whether the people of this city want an institution of higher education, Burlington Superintendent E.M. Sipple told The Hawk-Eye Gazette, “may be judged by the exceptional success so far of the college.”
Truer words could not have been spoken.
With nearly 100,000 former students and countless more residents served, SCC proudly continues the legacy of that first class.
