Blue Mountain Community College

Blue Mountain Community College was established on July 1, 1962, after winning an overwhelming five-to-one vote of confidence by the residents of Umatilla and Morrow counties.

The college opened its doors in September of that same year. Vocational-technical courses were initially taught at Pendleton’s John Murray Junior High School, while college transfer programs were added a year later. In 1965, Blue Mountain Community College moved to its present campus high on the north hill overlooking Pendleton. Within ten years, the original construction plans for the college were completed. In September 1992, the college purchased Columbia Hall in Hermiston to accommodate a growing student population in western Umatilla County. In October 1993, the college created a center in Milton-Freewater by leasing the former US Bank Building. In 1994, the Milton-Freewater Continuing Education Office and Basic Skills Center moved to the same location.

Fall term 1995 marked the beginning of BMCC’s distance education program. While the college had offered telecourses for a number of years, newer mediums such as videotapes, the Internet, and ED-NET expanded the options of potential students who were bound by constraints of time or location.

In November 1998, the voters in Morrow and Umatilla counties passed a bond measure for facility expansion in district growth areas. The bond financed expansion of the centers in Hermiston and Milton-Freewater and the opening of the BMCC Morrow County center in Boardman. The Pendleton campus expansion included new technical agriculture buildings, a new science and technology building, and the remodeling and upgrading of older facilities.  A ballot measure in March 2000 annexed Baker County into the BMCC district. Classes at BMCC Baker County began in the fall of 2000.

Blue Mountain Community College looks forward to celebrating its 50th anniversary in the 2010. Activities will honor the leaders—board of education members, presidents, faculty, staff, alumni, and community—whose vision made our college grow.