Our Seward Magazine Club meets tomorrow evening and I plan to report on Senator Stanley Matzke's role in the founding of the Milford, NE Campus of the Southeast Community College. I'm using the 1941-1991, 50 Year celebration publication as my source. I also plan to pass the publication on to Chuck, a son of Stanley's, who with his wife Jan, are members of the Club. The report includes the following information: "State Senator, Stanley Matzke of Seward described his January 1940 trip to North Dakota State Trade School in Wahpeton in his 1929 car as the 'longest and most profitable trip I have ever made'.
"Matzke made the long trip to North Dakota because he wanted to see an actual trade school in operation. After touring the facility, he spent an additional week in the area talking to graduates and their employers about the benefits of vocational education. Immediately upon his return, Matzke began drafting a bill for the creation of a trade school using the former Soldiers and Sailors Home buildings in Milford. The home by this
time had been vacant for two years. In 1941 during the fifty-fifth session of the Nebraska Legislature, Senator Matzke introduced Legislative Bill No. 148 that provided for the establishment of the Nebraska State Trade School under the State Board of Vocational Education. In his formal testimony to the Legislature, Senator Matzke stated: 'The main idea is a Nebraska trade school suited and adapted to the needs of Nebraska now and for years to come--a school which will enable at least some of the 90% of our young boys who cannot avail themselves to higher educational advantages to learn a peace time trade which will assist them in becoming worth while citizens. ' Under Matzke's skillful management of LB 148, it breezed through the Legislature and was signed by Governor Dwight Griswold who called it a forward step into the state's future.'" It's official date of establishment is March 28, 1941, with a May 1, opening date.
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