Leah Bouchard-Lundberg: Seeing CMC Thrive

I was married to Rolland “Rolly” Bouchard, one of the first faculty members at the Colorado Mountain College Campus in Spring Valley.

After attaining his master’s degree from Colorado State University, Rolly taught at Rifle High School, hoping that an opportunity would open up to teach at CMC.

He was promoted after three years to head of the Business & Accounting department. We met at the college, and Joe Davenport was our president, and I worked for Ted Pohrte, who was Dean of Faculty. Our firstborn son, Brian, was the first baby born to any faculty at the college, and I have pictures of him with Rolly at the first CMC graduation.

Since Rolly and I were the youngest married couple, we and were responsible for the entertainment of other faculty members who came to CMC. We introduced them to “jeeping” on Aspen Mountain, and dined with them at the Tippler Inn in Aspen.

He enjoyed many a “beginning school year hike” up the face of Mount Sopris. It was a time for refreshing ideas regarding the ensuing year and energized teachers for a new year of challenges.

Rolly was involved with hiring Randy Vanderhurst, who would head up the Veterinarian Assistant Program. He worked with Dave Anderson, who was head of the Agricultural/Farming Department, and with Harvey Telinde, who was Dr. Postelwaite’s protégé, and was the instructor who brought the new “audio-visual-tutorial” style of instruction to CMC.

The “audio-visual-tutorial” way of instructing at the college was quite a success. We admitted students who were failing high school, brought them into a new environment at CMC and saw them thrive.