Among Butler Community College's Class of 1968 are, front row, from left, Sandra Hilderbrand, Susan West, Natalie Stariat, Jacqueline Shedio, Nancy Adams, Mary Giles and Marie Pelliccione; second row, from left, Josephine Harlan, Marilyn Pelliccione, Kathleen Parker, Patricia Furka, Donna McWilliams, Karen Mennor, Kathrynann Bellaji and Mary Ann Long; third row, from left, Carole Kennedy, C. Dallas Sarver Jr., Dorothy Lee, Diane Brown, Linda Andrew, Helen Cehelsky, Valdevia Clark, Carol Heckathorne, Cynthia Trimble and Mary Ellen Walker; and fourth row, from left, Ronald Thompson, unidentified, Robert Double, Raymond Lewis, Thomas Hall, Chalmer Ritzert, William Wuenstel and Betsy Yates.

Four years after being born in Germany to native Ukrainians who were transported into forced labor camps during World War II, Natalie Stariat would travel across the Atlantic Ocean with parents Dmytro and Ann, and twin brother, Peter, and settle in Lyndora.

The daughter of former villagers whose formal educations advanced no further than the fourth grade, Stariat would graduate from Butler Senior High School in 1966 and enroll in Butler County Community College, which was offering its first classes three months later. That, she says, “was the start of it all.”

BC3 also was the beginning of a lifetime of education pursuit for Carole Kennedy, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Magee Womens Hospital of UPMC, Pittsburgh.

As it was for Raymond Lewis, a former adjunct faculty member at Harford Community College in Bel Air, Md.

And a launching point for 59 other classmates, who marched across a makeshift stage on a lawn between BC3’s three buildings June 9, 1968, to receive associate degrees or certificates as part of BC3’s first graduating class.

“I had a sense of being the first and accomplishing something that had not been done before,” Lewis said. “I had a feeling of accomplishment.”

BC3 will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its Class of 1968 at a 5:45 p.m. reception Wednesday in the Alumni Quiet Room of the Heaton Family Learning Commons. The class will also be recognized at the college’s 7 p.m. Wednesday commencement.

“This will give people a chance to reconnect,” said Mary Beth Rock, alumni council chairman. “They are literally from one coast to another. It would be fabulous for them to be able to come back and see people they have not seen for 50 years and see how fabulous our campus is 50 years later.”

The Heaton Family Learning Commons, which opened in 2016, was a glade in a grove of oak trees where the class of 1968 assembled for commencement, in an area now known as the Quadrangle on BC3’s main campus.

Fourteen buildings and 23,000 students later, BC3 will celebrate its 578-member class of 2018 with commencement exercises in the Field House.

“It’s hard to believe, to see so many students who are coming to BC3,” said Natalie Kitzko, the former Natalie Stariat who graduated with an associate of applied science degree in secretarial science and started working for BC3 that summer.

Kitzko has served as a secretary in the college’s records and registration office since 1990.

“Students,” she said, “are realizing the value of a community college.”

Kennedy, now Dr. Carole Chesin, graduated from Knoch High School in 1966 and was the only one of her six siblings to attend college.

“I had been accepted to some four-year colleges, but I was thinking, ‘How am I ever going to handle this?’” Chesin said. “My parents could help, but they certainly weren’t going to be footing most of the bills. I worked while I went to BC3 and put myself through school, as I did the rest of the way.”

Chesin earned an associate of arts degree at BC3, a Bachelor of Science degree in education from Slippery Rock State College and, in 1978, a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

“It was a drive I had,” Chesin said, “and BC3 kept the drive going.”

Lewis also continued his quest for a graduate education. He received a master’s degree in clinical social work from the University of Maryland at Baltimore after earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Slippery Rock State College and an associate of arts degree at BC3.

“BC3 taught me the ability to question and to think,” said Lewis, who retired as chief of managed care operations with the Maryland Mental Hygiene Administration in 2006.

“BC3 gave me and continues to give students the opportunity to learn in small class settings and to have direct contact with the actual professor rather than a teaching assistant. BC3 also prepares students for continued employment and success,” he said.

“If you have your associate degree, you have something to work with.”

This report was submitted by William Foley, coordinator of news and media content at Butler County Community College.