The year was 1969. Get Smart and Bewitched were top TV shows. The Montreal Expos played their first home game. Pierre Trudeau was a rookie Prime Minister. And the Orillia Campus of Georgian College opened for business.

William Leslie remembers it well. He worked with Orillia’s Adult Education Centre when it became the Orillia Campus on Jan. 1, 1969.

“We were located in the old Armouries building,” he recalls. “There were machine, carpentry and masonry shops. We also taught business programs including typing and stenography skills. We worked with adults who were retraining, but in effect for many it was the first training they ever had. There were 400 students in full-time programs, with two shifts going, day and evening. It was a busy place right from the start.”

Ten years later in 1979, Leslie was again at the centre of Georgian’s Orillia history when the new Campus opened on the Memorial Avenue property where it remains today. The headline in the Orillia Packet and Times trumpeted, “At last, a real college campus here.”

“I was the Orillia principal at the time and a big part of my job was to get the building ready and get everybody in there for the start of classes,” says Leslie. “It was like moving your home, multiplied by factor 10.”

Ontario Premier William Davis was the special guest for the building’s grand opening.

Lorraine Callaghan was there too. She still works at the Orillia Campus. In fact, this year she received her 40-year pin from the college, becoming the longest-serving employee on any of Georgian’s seven campuses.

A Smith-Corona typewriter she used back in the ’70s is included in a special display of memorabilia for the 40th anniversary celebrations. There are no letters on the keys, not because they have rubbed off, but because a true touch typist would never have dreamed of looking at them.

The tools may have changed over 40 years, but for Callaghan, the goal of helping students succeed has remained constant.

“I’m privileged to be the orator at convocations,” she says. “It is a huge thrill to see the students that I have dealt with on their very first visit to the college. Now I am announcing their names as they graduate. We have amazing success stories here, over and over again. I never get tired of that.”

Over the years, there have been numerous expansions at the Orillia Campus.

Today it is a site for full-time and Continuing Education programs, academic upgrading and corporate training. In 2003, the campus also became a site of Georgian’s unique University Partnership Centre, bringing Orillia its first university studies through Laurentian University.

A key strength of the Campus, and a focus of the 40th anniversary celebration, is its enduring connection to the community.

According to Leslie, it began with the adult training and upgrading programs of 1969.

“I remember people who wanted to progress in life but couldn’t because of their lack of formal academic background, until they came to us. I still meet some of those people on the street today and they have moved on to all kinds of things. Some went on to further education, some have gone on to be teachers themselves, and many have successful careers or businesses in Orillia. It was an important contribution to our community right from the beginning,” she says.

PHOTO: Then Georgian President Robert Crawford (on the right) with local dignitaries at a College event in 1970.