As Flathead Valley Community College was poised to start a community education program in 1979, Donna Hopkins happened to be in the right place at the right time.

She had wrapped up her master’s degree in anthropology and was teaching part time at the University of Maine.

“I wasn’t sure what to do next,” Hopkins recalled.

Hopkins’ grandmother had taken a bad fall at her Whitefish home during the winter of 1978 and needed extra care. Hopkins was determined to keep her grandmother out of the nursing home, so she arrived in May 1979 to live with her. As a child she spent summers in Whitefish with her grandmother.

Hopkins needed a job, though, so she nosed around FVCC to explore teaching possibilities. She landed a part-time position teaching students working toward their General Educational Development, or high-school equivalency diploma.

“I kept checking in, getting to know people. Dwight Milne was president at that time,” Hopkins remembered. “I made an appointment with him and it was a serendipity type of experience.”

Through that conversation she learned the college would be looking for a community education director. Hopkins gunned for the job in a big way, learning the name of every board trustee and studying everything she could about continuing education and FVCC.

She beat out two other finalists for the job and set about creating what would become an integral part of the college’s offerings for non-credit students and lifelong learners.

Last year FVCC’s Continuing Education Center offered 432 classes and served more than 3,500 people.

In the program’s early days, though, it was a mountain of work, Hopkins recalled.

“I had been a high school teacher, but this was my favorite job because I was able to start the program,” said Hopkins, who retired 10 years ago from a career with the U.S. Small Business Administration. “It was truly taking something from the beginning and building it. It was so wonderful to see that happen.”

The first big task was figuring out what kinds of non-credit classes people wanted. She and Bill McClaren, one of FVCC’s founders, “just went around and called people.

“We made appointments with people about what they thought about the college,” Hopkins said.

She worked with Plum Creek Timber Co. on business training courses, talked to banks about their needs and started a nurse’s aide program.

“After about a year or a little more, I couldn’t keep up with everything,” Hopkins said.

Leslie Rogers was the first person Hopkins hired as a full-time employee in continuing education. Rogers went on to spend 34 years of her career working in the Continuing Education Center.

In FVCC’s 50th anniversary commemorative publication, Rogers stated “it was a privilege to be in on the ground floor of an idea that began with a handful of classes and grew into a major component of the college’s offerings.”

Hopkins said Rogers was a pivotal player in the continuing education program.

“Leslie was so efficient in every way,” she added.

Next to join the program was K.C. Zwisler, who led the Elderhostel program for older adults. Kathy Hughes came on board as Hopkins’ assistant director in those early years, and later became director herself.Asta Bowen was hired to do some part-time public information work, developing the schedule and coordinating registration.

Community Education — as the continuing education component originally was called — was housed during the early years in a loft on the top floor of Heritage Hall on First Avenue East and First Street in downtown Kalispell.

Hopkins realized the importance of being able to take classes into outlying communities, and with Rogers’ help developed outreach centers in libraries and schools across the valley.

There was a wine-making class in the early days. Classes on art and fly-tying were big hits, and the “cowboy jitterbug” dance class was wildly popular, Hopkins said.

“I thought a class of 20 would be manageable, but 47 showed up [for that first dance class]. I opened up another class and taught it myself, just that one time,” she recalled with a laugh.

By the mid-1980s Hopkins was “pretty worn out by that time,” so she took a sabbatical leave and left FVCC in 1986, bound for Hawaii and other opportunities. She still keeps in touch with Hughes, Rogers and Zwisler.

“We all complemented each other so well,” she said. “Because we generated our own income we didn’t get involved with any of the politics.”

During the first 10 years, Community Education introduced Flathead residents to Elderhostel, the Glacier Institute, Expanding Your Horizons, Business over Breakfast, Senior Adventures and many other programs, proving the value of continuing education.

“People don’t have a clue what the Flathead Valley would be like without the college,” Hopkins said. “It’s a real fine college.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.