Timeline

1964

September and October
Committee of Twenty Five committee members distributed brochures and spoke throughout the county to service clubs, schools, Granges, PTAs, and other agencies.

October
Promotional messages appeared on KMVT, Channel 11

November 3
Twin Falls County voters indicated clearly-10,636 for to 4,976 against- that they wanted a junior college district.  Fewer than ten of the fifty precincts opposed

November 20
The Committee of Twenty-Five recommended to the state board of education that Governor Smylie appoint the first five trustees from a list of about twenty names of individuals who would make good members of the board of trustees.

1965

January 2
County Commissioner Maurice Klass administered the oath of office to the new trustees during their first meeting.

January 23
Meeting with Sam. R. Glenn, State Director of Vocational Education, the board asked that CSI become an Area Vocational School 

January 23
The board hired attorneys Benoit and Benoit as council for the new junior college. 

On February 1
The board had no funds listed in the treasurer’s report; that changed the next day when the board received $11,077.04 in liquor funds from the State Liquor Dispensary.

February 18
The board interviewed forty-year old Dr. Jim Taylor

February 24
The trustees offered him the presidency. 

March 13
Dr. Jim Taylor landed at the Twin Falls airport.

March 22
board decisions.  Faculty members must have Master’s Degrees in their major teaching assignments. Teachers would not be hired as full time instructors if they were contracted with Magic Valley school districts. 

March 29
H.B. 313 divided the state into six junior college areas.  Area 4 included Blaine, Camas, Cassia, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, Minidoka, Twin Falls and parts of Elmore and Owyhee counties.  Only one public college per area could exist until the first exceeded 1,000 full-time day students.  To form a junior college district, at least four school districts were needed. 

May
The first college catalog listed seventeen academic faculty,

August
Wesley Dobbs, Assistant Police Chief to teach in the Law Enforcement Program

Mid-August
twenty-four faculty members hired

August 24
The Civic Auditorium Association, the Twin Falls City Commission and the Twin Falls Chamber of Commerce on 1965, jointly offered a ninety-eight acre site for the new campus along the Snake River Canyon rim, just west of the Twin Falls Gun Club.

August 27
Eighty-nine percent of Jerome County voters- 1,151 yes to 136 no- wanted to join the junior college district.

August 31
Gooding County voters rejected joining the junior college district -1,105 against to 423

September 1
First classes began with an eventual enrollment total of 640, with 240 of those being in the ten vocational programs.

September 20
The Civic Auditorium Association announced that it wanted to contribute money for building a civic auditorium with no strings attached as long as it was “within a certain radius from the city of Twin Falls.”

October
Students voted to name the student newspaper the CSI Horizon.

October 7 and 8
A team of five individuals-chairman Dr. Boyd A. Martin and three others, from the University of Idaho, along with one from Idaho State University-visited the campus for a preliminary check of courses for accreditation. 

October 19
The three non-Twin Falls trustees voted to select a three person out-of-state site selection committee; the two Twin Falls trustees, John Coleman and Eldon Evans, opposed the motion.

October 28
Student senators selected among themselves Ron Hansen as first student body president, Bill Waddell the first vice president and Barbara Frederickson as first secretary-treasurer. 

November
Students chose the Golden Eagle as the school mascot with gold, purple and white as school colors.  Later, black replaced purple as one of the three colors because of the difficulty in finding purple uniforms. 

December 5, 6, and 7
The site selection team surveyed eight plus potential locations and interviewed interested groups of people.

List of significant dates from 1964 and 1965 taken from Chapters 2 & 3 of my CSI History - Dr. Jim Gentry 10/2/14