[naming the community college to be vo-tech]. To them [the Alachua Public School System] it was more of a nuisance than anything else. P: So if Edison had wanted to do it from the beginning, they could have. R: Only if the school board would have been agreeable, I think. P: And that meant whether they were willing to spend the dollars to do what was necessary. Did Edison also start with a program of offering courses for the general public? R: Yes. They do some of that. P: Did they do it back in the 1960s when they first [opened]? R: I think they did. But, again, here the public school system does that in a big way, so Edison, I think, just grew into that. P: I see. R: Whereas, as you know, in Gainesville that has been recognized as the best program in the state and in the nation. P: Where did Edison's first faculty come from? R: David [Robinson] had come from Manatee [Junior] College [Bradenton, Florida], so he had some connections. P: So Edison was not among the first of the community colleges? R: I do not think so. It was fairly early, but not amongst the first. I think between Chuck Rollins's own connections, and David [Robinson's] connections, and doing some advertising and getting help from the universities, etc., they were able to attract a faculty without too much trouble. P: And if they only had 600 or 700 students, they really did not need a huge faculty. R: No. A small faculty. P: I want to ask you about the whole operation of the community colleges, as they operated in Florida. I have a little bit of the history of it from [James] Wattenberger. It comes out of the Minimum Foundation Law of 1947, it is reorganized and so on in 1955, Wattenberger becomes the executive secretary director, and twenty-eight colleges are authorized. They are not created overnight. R: No. -72-