Chaparral 2024-2025: A Short History of Chaparral by Guest Columnist Jean LeCuyer

A Short History of Chaparral by Guest Columnist Jean LeCuyer

The Chaparral was initially called, rather prosaically, The Faculty Newsletter. It was started by two Social Science faculty, Jeb Brighouse and Desmond Kilkeary, and myself. At the time the faculty was involved in an adversarial relationship with the President of the College, Dr. Rex Craig. Why the adversarial relationship is not clear. Rex was our first president after we split from the K-12 district and that may have contributed. Before the split, the College was governed from a distance; mostly by the Superintendent of the K-12, and our president was mostly a figurehead.

So, Rex came here and felt that he had to make sure that the College functioned well as a newly independent institution and that may have created problems with a faculty that was mostly self-governing before. So, to give a strong voice to the faculty, and make sure that the new College Board of Trustees knew of our opinions, we created the Newsletter. It was a very creative enterprise, and Desmond in particular wrote some outstanding articles that are still fun to read today. I think the library has kept copies of the old Newsletter. The name of Chaparral was given to the Newsletter by Steve White while he was Guild President.