Betty Porter remembers when her classes were held in Kendall Hall and Bidwell Mansion. She remembers starting college with veterans from World War II. She remembers when the campus population was just over 1,500.
"Our professors were the ones all the buildings are named after," Porter said.
Porter, 74, graduated from Chico State University in 1950. Her college memories include Pioneer Days, "Little Nell" and her sorority, Delta Sigma Epsilon.
She doesn't know Chico State in terms of budget cuts or alcohol-related problems that first-year students came into when they started school in fall 2002. In 53 years, the campus has grown in size, population and events. Being a college student then was similar, but still an experience that was before the campus and community went through major developments and got to where it is in 2003.
Porter, then Betty Greenwood, said that when she was a student, Trinity Hall was the school library and her large lecture classes were held in Laxson Auditorium. There was a swimming pool behind what is now Selvester's Café-by-the-Creek. Shurmer Gym was the only athletic building, and a place where Porter spent much of her time.
And she knows her athletics. Porter married a Chico State basketball player.
"He was the big man on campus," she said.
Porter and her husband, Clark, met in her first year of college. Their first meeting illustrates the Chico atmosphere of friendly interaction.
"I was riding with a girlfriend in her convertible and he was riding with a friend in his pick-up," she said. "And we sort of stopped and visited and that's how it all started."
Porter holds this memory as her favorite from college. She said she and Clark would often go out with another couple after Clark's basketball games, which Porter said were the place to be back then.
Porter said the students were very involved in the school's athletics back then. Women weren't a part of intercollegiate sports in the late 1940s. Porter said she would have tried to play if she could, but instead spent most of her time cheering on her husband.
Porter said although she thinks Nettleton Stadium and the baseball team has done a lot for school spirit at Chico State today. When she was a student, they would sing a hymn before each sporting event to promote school spirit and unity.
"It was sort of like the national anthem," she said.
Porter and her husband continue to support the team Clark was once a part of. The two of them have season seats to Chico State basketball games.
And of course, Porter remembers the football team. While Porter said it wasn't the focus of athletics, it was an important asset to the school. She said she wishes it were still a part of the university for times when the sport was traditionally more important.
"Somehow homecoming without football isn't homecoming," Porter said.
But football isn't the only thing Porter experienced that students don't have now. She remembers the pranks, parades and parties that were extinguished from Chico State in the 1980s.
"We had the infamous Pioneer Days back then," she said. "It was something the whole town participated in. It was just a week of fun."
Porter said the student body would elect "Little Nell," who would lead the parade with the elected sheriff.
"People would come into our classrooms and say that Little Nell had been kidnapped, and all the guys would get up to go save her," Porter said.
There were also parties. Porter said the university would put on a pre-Pioneer Day dance along with a Pioneer Day dance. She said there wasn't the out-of-control debauchery or riots that led to the cancellation of the holiday.
"It was a celebration," Porter said. "There was drinking, but not to that extent. We didn't have any of the problems that developed later."
She said the fraternities would put on dances where a lot of students would drink, but alcohol wasn't considered to be an issue that many consider it to be now.
"Nothing happened like has happened recently," Porter said.
Porter said being in a sorority helped her to be involved with the university. She said there wasn't any elitism with being a part of one and that it was just another club on campus.
"We had teas and fashion shows," she said. "I enjoyed it then."
She said there wasn't a label on sororities and fraternities that many students put on the organizations now.
"Some had classifications, like some (fraternities) would be all athletes," she said.
Porter said her sorority would hold its meetings on campus in a classroom because the organizations didn't have houses. Her sorority adviser was Vesta Holt - the woman whose name rests on a building on the north side of campus.
The university didn't have dorms, either. Warner Street held a "Vets' Village," a small neighborhood for married veterans and their families.
Porter said that being in college with the veterans was entertaining, because they knew how to be serious but still have fun.
"Here were these young innocent girls thrown in with these boys who had just gotten back from war," she said.
She said they weren't very open about their war experience.
"They didn't talk about it much," Porter said. "I think it's rather indicative of what they went through."
She said the veterans were mature, which she said was a nice change from boys in high school. She said they had their priorities straight and were driven to make it through college. She said she was the same way.
As an elementary education major, Porter had a full load of classes on top of working for an accountant for extra money.
"I didn't have a lot of time to fool around on campus," she said.
In her school years, Porter remembers the students having close interaction with their professors because the campus and community were both so small.
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