2013-14 Founders’ Day Honorees

(Posthumous Honoree) — One of two chosen to serve as the first local representatives on
the Yuba Community College Board of Trustees in 1976, Faye was a well-known, community-minded
local farmer. After serving four years in the Army at Pearl Harbor, Faye returned to his
family’s corporation near Knights Landing and continued his family’s legacy of
an enormous prune, walnut and field crop farming company. In 1948 he became director of Sunsweet
Growers, Inc., and from 1959-1976 he was chairman of the Board of Sunsweet and several other ag-related
boards and commissions. The father of three was also extremely involved in local youth-related venues,
and Faye served as a trustee on the boards of education for Grafton Elementary, Woodland schools, and
then later as a charter trustee for this area on the YCC Board

Books have a special place in her life — and at WCC, thanks to Gray’s 29-year career
at the Woodland campus. In 1982, the Yuba Community College District hired Gray as a library
technical assistant, back when the local campus bookstore, library and media center were all housed
in a single portable building on California Street. During her years in this position, Gray created a
vast library system that is still in use at WCC. After retiring, Gray added another chapter to her
career by assisting in the redesign the Clear Lake campus library, and she later helped open a new
campus in Williams

The first professor of nursing for the Woodland campus, Klenhard played a key role in the creation
and growth of a licensed vocational nursing program for local students. Drawn to nursing as a child,
Klenhard graduated from the University of Minnesota, spent six months in Colorado during World War
II and then moved to Hawaii where she worked as an emergency room nurse and began teaching. Soon she
met and married a California native, and in 1948 the newlyweds moved to Stockton, then later to Yolo
County. Klenhard began working for Woodland Memorial Hospital, raising a family and teaching nursing
in Sacramento. When Woodland was made part of the Yuba Community College District in the
early  ‘70s, Klenhard was asked to join the staff and launch the nursing program.
She taught hundreds of students during her 17-years at WCC before retiring to spend time with her
family.

Along with a direct connection to agriculture — she and
her husband farmed several acres of land in the Sutter Basin near Knights Landing for more than 50
years  — Leathers served as the local representative to the Yuba Community College Board
of Trustees for 22 years. The mother of six children, Leathers and her husband were extremely
active in a variety of boards and commissions, and she was a key leader as a Trustee during WCC’s
move from a small, rented building on California Street to its current spacious site on East Gibson
Road.

One of the original 12 staff members, Leathers passed along a
wealth of knowledge about plant science and other agricultural subjects to thousands of students
over his 30-plus years as a teacher in Woodland secondary schools and as ag instructor at WCC.
Although the first college classroom he taught in was a multipurpose room at Douglass Junior High,
Leathers grew the WCC ag program to include several greenhouses, lathe buildings and gardens for
hands-on learning opportunities. And although now retired, Leathers maintains his roots in area
farming and history, volunteering at a local ag museum and collecting antiques.

As the first woman on the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, Marchand’s determined spirit to
support the interests of local families played a key role in acquiring the land needed for WCC. With
a strong resume of cooperative projects between various government agencies and local resources,
Marchand was able to connect a project to expand the Yolo County jail and find a permanent campus for
WCC. Needed infrastructure in Woodland’s Southeast Area had previously made East Gibson Road an
unlikely option. But a series of events in the early 1980s culminated with Marchand fighting for and
winning a grant of more than $13 million to build a new jail, roads, water, sewer and other necessary
utilities to develop the land WCC sits on today.

(Posthumous Honoree) —A mother of four and a junior high teacher, Pohl
played a critical role in gathering local momentum in the early 1970s for a college in Woodland.
An English teacher at Lee Junior High School, Pohl saw a need for higher education in this area
and began writing letters to the editors of local newspapers and organizing meetings to focus energy
toward creating a college district. Although later it was determined that the area was too small
for its own district, Pohl became chairwoman of a committee that ultimately played a critical role
in Woodland’s eventual connection to the Yuba Community College District.