Celebrating 60 Years of Cypress College: Bryan Ausburn Remembers the Beginning
As Cypress College celebrates its 60th anniversary, Bryan Gregory Ausburn remembers its earliest days, when he was among the first students to register.
Ausburn was 18 when his friend Gaylan Harris encouraged him to attend a meeting about a new college planned near Holder Street and Orange Avenue. He had expected to attend Fullerton College and was skeptical that Cypress College could be ready for students by fall. Ausburn knew the area well. His father’s family had a ranch nearby on Juanita Street, and he remembered when the land around Cypress College was simply farmland. To him, the idea of a college opening there within a matter of months seemed unlikely.
Harris eventually convinced him to attend the meeting. Ausburn recalls Harris telling him some big plans.
“I am going to be the first Student Body President, and you are going to be the first Freshman Class President,” Harris told him.
Ausburn thought his friend was just dreaming, but that is exactly what happened.
Ausburn was among the first students to register at Cypress College. He originally stood ninth in line on the first day of registration, but he did not want to be student No. 9. He invited the woman behind him to move ahead, making him student No. 10, a number he has carried with pride ever since.
As one of Cypress College’s first student leaders, Ausburn helped shape some of the college’s earliest traditions. During the summer of 1966, he took part in planning efforts involving the college’s colors, themes, traditions, and student government. In July, incoming students voted on the college’s colors and mascot. Royal purple and old gold were chosen as the original school colors, while Chargers narrowly won the vote over Centurions. The colors were changed in the late 1980s, to the current, blue and gold, but Royal Purple and Old Gold and the original Charger remain closely tied to Ausburn’s memories of Cypress College’s early years.
From then on, Cypress College became an important part of his life. Ausburn and the other students were helping build a new college during the Vietnam War and a time of major change in the country.
“Cypress College became home and family to me,” Ausburn said. “I loved it and found it impossible to leave.”
The campus was also close to his grandparents’ home and ranch, making Cypress feel even more like familiar territory. He spent three years at the college before moving on to continue his education at the university level.
What he remembers most is how close the early group of students became. Starting a new college meant taking on responsibilities such as organizing student government and developing campus traditions, but there was also room for the more fun side of college life. Ausburn recalls becoming known for elevator races during a statewide community college student government convention in San Francisco in 1966, one of many memories that has stayed with him over the years.
Sixty years later, Ausburn speaks about Cypress College with the same love he had as a student. He remains proud of the traditions he remembers from the college’s earliest years and the role that he and his classmates played in creating its early identity.
“My heart and history still lives there,” Ausburn said.
What once seemed like an unlikely plan for a college became a place Ausburn came to consider home. One part of that history has never changed.
He is, in his words, “Permanent Number 10.”