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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The next chapter in Lake County's story of higher education got started on Thursday afternoon with hard hats, ceremonial shovels and a tomato.
The hard hats and shovels were the more traditional parts of the groundbreaking for the new Mendocino College Lake Center, to be built on 31 acres at 2565 Parallel Drive in Lakeport.
The tomato was, according to Kelseyville businessman Gary Olson, a tradition from his Spanish ancestors, who buried a tomato at the start of a project for good luck.
Olson gave the bright yellow tomato to Mike Adams, another Kelseyville resident and Mendocino College's director of facilities planning, who has been with the college for nearly 30 years and helped draft its master plan, which included the new college for Lake County.
After several people in the large crowd of several dozen community members and local officials began to chant, “Tomato, tomato,” Adams dutifully turned some earth over the tomato to get the project rolling.
Mendocino College President and Superintendent Kathy Lehner explained that Measure W, passed in November 2006 had made the new campus possible in this time of difficult financial pictures.
College officials have stated that the new facility will be ready for students in January 2013.
“I've been waiting for 23 years for this to happen,” Mark Rawitsch, dean of the Lake Center as well as Mendocino College's center in Willits, told the group.
He said when he was hired 23 years ago, he was told that construction on a new Lake Center was set to start within 18 months.
Rawitsch thanked voters, community members, the private sector, the city of Lakeport, public servants and students for making it possible.
“For those of us who may think our best days are behind us, look at the Lake Center and think again,” he said.
Adams said he and his wife came to Lake County 30 years ago and began farming. He said he never dreamed he actually would be growing an institution.
He said he felt he was helping to plant the last seed of the college's master plan for Lake County.
Wilda Shock, a member of the new Lake County Friends of Mendocino College Governing Council, said the project was “all about teamwork.”
She said the Lake County Friends of Mendocino College was composed of “your friends and neighbors,” and she guaranteed the community would be hearing more from the group as it worked to support the college's work in Lake County.
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