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Memories of Norco College
Memory by Professor Emerita of Art, Karin Skiba (1993)
The original student services at Norco in about 1992 was led by retired professor
Bob Prior, among his other duties. We had a rodeo one spring, and I am thinking it
was 1993.
I had formed an art club with some really wonderful students who were in my art classes. We helped build storefronts, a jail house, and a few other places for the rodeo itself. There were a few clubs then. The rodeo was held in the dirt area that is today a parking lot. Remember, in those days, all we had was the admin building, the Humanities, the theater and the building that now houses the gallery. Everything was taught in those buildings. Faculty offices were far and few between and we shared them.
I had formed an art club with some really wonderful students who were in my art classes. We helped build storefronts, a jail house, and a few other places for the rodeo itself. There were a few clubs then. The rodeo was held in the dirt area that is today a parking lot. Remember, in those days, all we had was the admin building, the Humanities, the theater and the building that now houses the gallery. Everything was taught in those buildings. Faculty offices were far and few between and we shared them.
Norco College Professor Karin Skiba (center), Norco Campus Art Club and others, circa 1993
The rodeo was a fun event, and we had the support of the community. There were a lot of horse people from Norco, cowboys, Iron Eyes Cody, and lots of visitors and students. Our police officer was there on a horse if I remember correctly.
As you can see, some of us wore our cowboy Stetson hats and got into it. One photo shows me (with my long hair) with Beatriz Vasquez, who was another founding faculty member.
Norco College Professor Karin Skiba (left) and Beatriz Vasquez at Rodeo, circa 1993
There is also a photo of me in the jail they built. In those days, we were still attached to the RCC campus as far as departments were concerned, and those of us who were full time at Norco were pioneers at best.
There is also a photo of me in the jail they built. In those days, we were still attached to the RCC campus as far as departments were concerned, and those of us who were full time at Norco were pioneers at best.
Norco College Professor Karin Skiba in Rodeo Jail, circa 1993
In 1990, when I was hired in with about 40 fellow faculty members, under President Kane, we were taken for a tour of the properties that would be Norco and Moreno Valley campuses. We were on a bus that drove to Norco, which seemed so far from Riverside, and shown this empty rocky land -told that this would be a campus (now Norco College). Then we went out to Moreno Valley where it was the same thing-empty land for that campus. Hard to believe how much has changed since then.
The original faculty would meet for lunch at Raspberry's Restaurant, which is now Baja Taco. There were about eight of us. I had been put on the Academic Senate as advised by Provost Marie Pepicello, and so this was where I would report back to my colleagues. We only had one Senate in 1993.
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