Gold Amongst the Chicken Feed – May 2021

Gold Amongst the Chicken Feed will feature some of my favorite stories from the community college archives I know and love.

17 May marked the 67th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education in Topeka desegregation case. Dr. Hugh Speer, vice-chair of Johnson County Community College’s first Board of Trustees and one of the earliest advocates for a community college in Johnson County, served as an expert witness in the case that would overturn the United States’ “separate-but-equal” doctrine.

Speer’s work in evaluating the disparities between the expenditures and quality of educational materials available in segregated schools proved instrumental in showing that segregation was inherently unequal, and direct quotes from his testimony formed the climax of Chief Justice Warren’s decision. Speer began his work to champion what would become JCCC before long there was state support for the creation of community college campuses in Kansas, organizing the 1963 Midwestern Junior College Conference that ultimately sparked a community commission and feasibility study supporting our campus. Today we see echoes of Speer’s leadership on our campus in the Speer Board Room where the Board meets – but I find it hard to not think of Dr. Speer when I walk to the Open Petal Farm. Dr. Speer loved and fought to protect the barn on campus, a reminder of when he and members of the Citizens’ committee chose the rolling hills of a dairy farm for JCCC’s location.