Humboldt State University Historian Commemorates Alma Mater in New Photographic History

May 4, 2010 - PRLog -- Sometimes a student arrives at college just looking for an education and instead ends up falling in love for a lifetime with the campus, its teachers and the natural world surrounding it. That’s what happened to alumna Katy Tahja and is why 43 years later she found a unique way to say “Thank You” to Humboldt State University.

Arcadia Publishing specializes in pictorial history books and has a campus history series. Humboldt State University is the newest title in the series debuting in May 2010, and the author wrote the book as an expression of love for the institution and the north coast.

In 1967 the author was Kathleen Alban, a co-ed coming to Humboldt for several reasons. She jokes it was as far away as she could get from her parents and still stay in the California state higher education system. But she also wanted a natural world of green forests and rushing rivers and a campus small enough to develop personal relationships with her professors. At Humboldt State she found what she was looking for.

Even back then she loved the campus. It was easy to spend an hour sitting on the steps of Founders Hall soaking in the wide vista of town, bay, ocean and horizon. Professor Emeritus Mac McClary was her mentor and a friendship has existed between them for 40 years. In 1970 she was awarded a B.A. in journalism and in 1975 she married David Tahja, also a Humboldt State alumnus.  Years flew by, a career as a librarian progressed, her family grew, and by the year 2000 her daughter Fern began studying at Humboldt State and attained a B.S. in Natural Resources in 2007.

Tahja approached the university’s administration proposing a new photo history of the campus produced in time to help celebrate the upcoming centennial in 2013. Having a friendship with University librarian Joan Berman for 30 years, the author knew there was a treasure trove of photos to access on campus. The summer of 2009 was spent sorting through thousands of images old and new to find 220 photographs that best told the history of the university. Add about 8,000 words of text and what exists is a delightful, informative look at the yesterdays of Humboldt State.

From the early years when each dorm room came with a wood burning stove, to the WWII years when blimps flew over a camouflage painted Founders Hall, from student protests in the 1960s, to a new sustainability graduation pledge for the new century, readers follow Humboldt State history through chapters devoted to each of the six presidents of the institution.

This book is available at the HSU Bookstore, independent local retailers, and on-line at
www.tinyurl.com/HSUhistory - A challenge is out to all Humboldt State alumni to find themselves in the photos in this book. Go Look!

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With more than 6,500 local history titles published to date, Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States. Widely recognized sepia books feature hundreds of vintage historical images.