Dr. Thurman Brock was a part of Craven Community College's story from the very beginning. His first day on the job was Aug. 15, 1961 as the inaugural Director of Vocational Education for Craven County Schools. He went on to become the College's first president, serving April 23, 1968–December 31, 1989.
To help preserve his institutional knowledge from those early years, Dr. Brock wrote an 18-part history of the College in 1984-85 for the school newspaper, "The Panther."
The oldest curriculum program at Craven Community College is Practical Nursing. On November 13, 1963, a letter from D. L. Stallings, Chairman of the Craven County Board of Commissioners, states that $1,911 for operational cost and $1,545 for capital outlay has been appropriated to begin the Licensed Practical Nursing program. This program was to occupy the fourth floor of the old St. Luke’s Hospital building located at the corner of Broad and George Streets, New Bern.
Miss Hildred Harrison, Director of Nursing at Craven County Hospital, was our first instructor and an invaluable asset in getting this program started. She continued in essentially two jobs until Mrs. Maxine Cliatt was employed as the first regular instructor for the LPN program.
My office was to be located on the fourth floor of the St. Luke’s Building in October 1964. I was employed of Lenoir County Industrial Education Center and the nursing program was also part of the institution in Kinston. Our first graduating class was required to go to Kinston for graduation ceremonies. This arrangement continued until 1968.
In 1965, things were to be a little better. This was due to the creation of extension units in counties where community college or technical institute existed. We of course became a unit of Lenoir County Community College with our own state budget. As the Craven unit of Lenoir County Community College, our bookkeeping was still handled by the home or sponsoring institution. I was unit director. At this time, Craven was one of 14 units operating throughout the state.
Our budget for fiscal year 1965-66 was $17,376 in county funds. We had 14 students enrolled in the Practical Nursing program and 1,533 students (duplicated headcount) enrolled in continuing education classes.
This enrollment included 19 different classes as follows: seven classes in Havelock-Cherry Point, four classes at Brinson Memorial School, three classes at James City School, four classes Pleasant Hill School (now the Craven Evaluation and Training Center), two classes in Cove City, two classes in Fort Barnwell, two classes in Vanceboro, and two fire service training classes in the county.
Ten of these classes were in Adult Basic Education, seven high school subjects, three in Adult Driver Education, and the remainder were in typing, shorthand, drafting, technical report writing, and electronics circuit analysis.
At this time we only access to the school building located in the county. The New Bern City Schools did not participate in the program at this time.
Lenoir County Community College was in its first year of operation under the name community college. The new president was Dr. Ben Fountain, former Superintendent of Elizabeth City-Pasquotank School System.
Under the leadership of Mr. Lynn Kelso, our local advisory committee Chairman, and Mr. R. L. Pugh, Superintendent of Craven County Schools, we began the process of developing plans for a community college for Craven County. Mr. H. J. MacDonald, Superintendent of the New Bern Schools, and commissioner Chairman D. L. Stallings were most helpful and supportive of our plans. One of our key supporters was Mr. Olin Wright, the Executive Director of the New Bern Chamber of Commerce. I could always count on Mr. Wright to give me encouragement when the going was tough and our plan seemed forever involved in red type.
Next time we will take a closer look at our first efforts to find a suitable temporary site for the college, how our enrollment began to increase, and the problems associated with this growth.