PORT ANGELES — Tom Keegan, outgoing president of Peninsula College, received a standing ovation of 100 members of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
Ten chamber members shared their memories of Keegan’s decade of leading Peninsula College, telling of his contributions to the college, to the city and to the community.
“Thank you for all you have done in Port Angeles,” said Ed Bedford, a Port Angeles businessman.
Keegan, 53, was selected in October to be the new president of Skagit Valley College, where he began his college education, earning an associate degree in 1978, and was the lead scorer and captain of its championship soccer team.
Playfully, Bedford added, “I have a document for you to sign here — an agreement that you will not recruit our soccer coaches or the basketball coach.”
Keegan’s last day at Peninsula College will be Friday, Feb. 3.
He will begin working in March at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, where he will earn $200,000 a year.
At the chamber luncheon, Keegan shared a few humorous stories of his time at Peninsula College, his best memories and his dreams for the future of the college.
He led Peninsula College through an unprecedented decade of growth with new campus buildings and facilities in Port Angeles as well as larger classroom satellites in Port Townsend and Forks.
He also oversaw the community college’s first four-year program and efforts that resulted in the college being awarded some $15 million in grants over six years.
Physical accomplishments — such as the Longhouse, a new playing surface at the playing field, new library, administration center and Maier Hall — are not the standards of achievement that Keegan said uses to measure his time at the college.
“I don’t think that way at all,” Keegan said.
He said that the structures set tone for learning, to let people know they have come to a special place and that expectations are high.
The Longhouse is a symbol of that concept, and a vision of how that worked nearly came true, he said.
The Peninsula College Longhouse and House of Learning was opened in October 2007 as a gathering place for sharing cultural traditions, knowledge and identity, its website at http://houseoflearning.pencol.edu/ says.
It began with Keegan’s vision as he imagined a 9-year-old Makah boy arriving on campus to visit the Longhouse for a cultural event and seeing himself as belonging on a college campus.
Vision came true
Later, Keegan said, his vision came true.
At a Lower Elwha Klallam dance and drum session at the Longhouse, which is on the Port Angeles campus, a group of girls were performing a dance, and a young man joined them, creating his own steps to the dance, Keegan.
Then, a 4-year-old Elwha boy got up and began imitating the teen boy, looking up to the young man, he said.
The young boy’s great-grandmother was Makah, Keegan noted, salvaging a small piece of his original vision.
Many of the members of the chamber shared Keegan’s vision of a campus where the community is welcome.
Changes striking
Russ Veenema, chamber executive director, noted that the new campus buildings are a dream for photography buffs like himself, and that the changes are striking, both physically and culturally.
Those changes may pave the way for people to one day say, “Port Angeles, isn’t that where Peninsula College is?” Veenema said.
“We have a long way to go to make this a college town,” he said,
“Thanks for helping.”
Port Angeles City Council Member Pat Downing recognized Keegan’s community contributions.
Keegan’s idea of excellence as a standard as president of the college has created a center of excellence for the entire community, Downing said.
Earlier presidents have not been as active in the community and have had a more “tower on the hill” outlook on the college’s role in the community, Clallam County Administrator Jim Jones said.
Keegan’s involvement in the chamber and other groups has benefitted the whole community, Jones said.
“We can only hope his successor does the same,” he said.
No permanent successor has been chosen yet.
Brinton Sprague of Port Ludlow will serve as interim president.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.