Flathead Valley Community College is preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

FVCC’s upcoming school year will include a series of commemorative events, displays and publications. As part of the effort, FVCC is seeking either loans or donations of items from the college’s early years.

College officials will pick items to be displayed in an exhibit at the Museum at Central School in Kalispell during the spring and summer of 2017.

Items such as graduation caps, uniforms, trophies, awards, posters, signs, programs and photographs will be considered for the exhibit as well as possible college publications.

The idea of a community college came together around a Kalispell kitchen table with notes marked on a typewriter.

The effort began soon after William McClaren, a counselor and chairman of the guidance department at Flathead High School, conducted a survey of the school’s graduates from 1952 to 1962.

The study found less than 20 percent of students applied for higher education and less than 7 percent of those graduated from college.

By comparison, half of the high school graduates in Missoula County went on to college and 40 percent graduated.

In a borrowed room in Kalispell School District 5, the outline of the college’s goals were drawn out by its first three employees — McClaren acted as the dean of students, Larry Blake became the school’s president and Leo Shepherd played the role of business manager, according to FVCC documents.

Flathead County voters established the community college in 1967. That same year, a board of trustees was elected to oversee the college and classes kicked off.

On Sept. 25, 611 students started evening classes at the fledgling college.

Initially, the college was scattered throughout community buildings in Kalispell and in basements of downtown churches. By 1968, FVCC moved into some of its own facilities and its course offerings expanded into morning and daytime classes, according to college documents.

The college acquired the old Elks Building — which today exists only in photographs — and the former train depot building, now the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce. As classes grew, students also met in an abandoned garage and the VFW bar before it opened for customers at noon.

FVCC also bought three abandoned car dealerships in downtown Kalispell and the building now known as the Central School Museum.

Today, the college stretches across 216 acres off U.S. 93 in Kalispell. In May, FVCC graduated its 48th class, with 374 students completing graduation requirements.

For more information on how to make a donation, contact Jill Seigmund at jseigmund@fvcc.edu or 756-3834.