Once it was started, there was no going back.

Jim Green, a Butler County commissioner at the time, said once he put his vote and the county taxpayer dollar behind the formation of Butler County Community College, he wasn't going to back down.

His action meant seeing the creation of a community college be put to the test in the state court system and another commissioner voted out of office.

For the first board of trustees, it meant putting their own money behind the college.

For college solicitor John Murrin, it meant working against a deadline.

For the community, it meant at least 40 years at a chance for a less expensive post-secondary education.

The Community College Act, Act 484, was passed by the state Legislature Aug. 24, 1963.

The law allowed taxing bodies to sponsor a two-year, non-residential college. The state would pay half of the construction costs of the college and a third of the operating expenses. The sponsor would pay a third and the remainder of the cost would be paid by the tuition.

After school boards in Butler County declined to sponsor the college, a group of citizens turned to the county commissioners.

Green, A.H. Bachman and William McCune voted unanimously to be the college's sponsor on March 3, 1965.

That same day, the documentation to form the college was in the mail to the state, Dorris Rose said.

Rose's husband, Gail, was the chairman of the board of trustees and a champion of community colleges when Act 484 was just a bill.

The county commissioners appointed the board of trustees and, with approval from the state, the college was working toward the opening deadline set by the state, September 1966.

With a year left to buy land, build structures and put together faculty, a Jefferson Township resident filed a lawsuit claiming the law permitting community colleges was unconstitutional because of the way it allowed the college to borrow money. Harold Retting's suit led to a court order stoping all contractual work to build the college.

The board of trustees knew they would never meet the state deadline if they stopped working on the college, and so they used their own houses and wealth as collateral to borrow the money needed for the college, Rose said.

When the suit was heard in Butler County Court in front of Judge Clyde S. Shumaker, Murrin represented the college.

His wife, Nancy Murrin, said he worked hard preparing for the case on Dec. 8, 1966. About six weeks later, Shumaker ruled for the college and reversed his order for the injunction.

The founders of the college had spotted land they hoped to make into the campus when they flew several flights over the county, Nancy Murrin said.

The land, 129 acres in Butler Township, was bought fromSam and Myrtle Brown for $35,000. In the next four months, the college bought more and more properties, including 95 acres of the Oak Hills Golf Course.

By groundbreaking on July 5, 1966, the more than 315-acre campus had been pieced together for $354,000.

The college's president, James Lawson, worked with the board to get a curriculum ready, faculty on board and roofs over the heads of students.

Armco buildings, simply named "A,""B," and "C," were constructed. Rose said the type of building was chosen because they could be put together so quickly.

"It was done at lightning speed," she said.

Students like Carole "Biff" Healy registered in a temporary office set up in the Lafayette Building in Butler. Healy signed up for biology classes before there was even a college building to sit in.

"They did a great job of convincing us it was a good opportunity," he said. "And it was. It was one of the greatest staffs ever put together."

Healy lived in Lancaster Township at the time and was attracted to the college because of the cost.

The cost was a marketable quality of the college.

Green said making an education affordable made him and the other commissioners back the plan. The other two commissioners hadn't experienced a post-secondary education and felt the opportunity would be invaluable to county residents.

Rose said, with the Cold War raging, people like her husband and then-Gov. William Scranton pushed ways to educate everyone.

After the launch of Sputnik, the Russian space satellite, the nation was scared of what might come next, she said. With the promise to reach the moon, Pennsylvania had responded by agreeing to create 23 community colleges. Fourteen materialized.

BC3 was the first community college opened west of the Allegheny Mountains, earning it the mascot "Pioneers."

Healy, though, takes the credit for the BC3 nickname. Sitting in algebra class, he coined the phrase, he said. He originally intended it to be pronounced "B-C-Cubed," he said, but when talking with Lawson it took on its current pronunciation.

Healy said his education at the college was a great start to his academic career, which eventually led him to West Virginia University, even if the first days of classes weren't filled with lectures.

The college met the state's deadline and opened for classes Sept. 26, 1966. Not everything was ready, though.

"The first days, I helped unpack and put out chairs," he said. "Some students learned how to put in windows."