This is Floyd Wynne with THE VIEW FROM HERE 7/14/05

It happened some 58 years ago, but it was a great moment in the history of the Klamath area.
The Marine hospital on the area a mile above Klamath Falls was closed down. Several thousand Marines had been treated at the campus area for diseases they may have suffered in combat in the tropics.
The big question was what would happen to the facilities there?
It consisted of considerable buildings....including a gym....a hospital area.....even an olympic sized swimming pool....a bowling alley and many other features.
The entire area was purchased for a very minimum sum by the State Board of Higher Education.
It was on this day, some 58 years ago that the first person registered at what was then called OVS....Oregon Vocational School.
The classes, initially, were for such workaday tasks as diesel engineering, auto mechanics as well as auto repair.
When I came to Klamath Falls in 1948 I contacted several former North Dakota friends who I knew were registered at the new school
As the sportscaster for radio station KFLW..... I became very familiar with the campus area.
At that time, this radio station was broadcasting both the basketball games as well as the football games of OVS....later to become Oregon Tech....and even later Oregon Institute of Technology.
While basketball was a catch as catch can situation....the football program had imported a number of athletes from the midwest and was doing quite well against some of the colleges of the state.
Rex Hunsaker was the football coach....and had a winning record.
OVS operated for a few years, and then came a threat to move the college to Portland .. or the Portland area.
Through the political efforts particularly of Senator Harry Boivin the college remained, but there was then the question of how do we keep the college locally.
It was the view of the late Mayor Lawrence Slater that the campus should be moved off the hill and down closer to the city. A fund drive was launched to raise money to purchase a site just north of the city from the O’Conner family.
The drive was successful and the property where the school now stands was purchased and deeded to the State Board of Higher Education.
Initially a six million dollar fund was provided for the planning and building of the campus of what was then called OTI. The design of the buildings looked a great deal like the buildings designed for the Air Force Academy.
Today it is OIT, the Oregon Institute of Technology.
Winston Purvine was the guiding light for the educational institution for many, many years. The college became a strong contender in basketball under Coach Danny Miles while Howard Morris was the Athletic Director.
The college now enrolls in excess of 2,500 students each year, and it’s reputation for turning out well qualified graduates has resulted in a great percentage of the graduates receiving excellent job opportunities.
So...what began as a Marine rehabilitation hospital during the closing days of World War Two.....has become one of the great institutions in the educational field.
This is Floyd Wynne and that’s the View From Here.