Lynn Kelso, Craven college pioneer, dies

A man who is said to have set the tone for Craven Community College in its earliest years has died.

Lynn Kelso, the first chairman of the college’s Board of Trustees, died Sunday at the age of 88.

Kelso was the first board chairman in 1968 when the college, then called the Craven County Technical Institute, became an official independent institution of the N.C. Community College System, said Sandy Wall, the college’s public information officer.

Kelso also chaired the planning committee that worked for the college’s creation as an extension of what is now Lenoir Community College in 1964.

 “I think he saw the benefit of what a college like that could for the community, he took a leading role in creating that, and we’re certainly fortunate that he and others did,” Wall said. “It takes a visionary form of leadership to create essentially something from nothing.”

That college was created as an extension of Lenoir Community College by an act of the N.C. General Assembly in 1965, and was called the Craven Industrial Education Unit. Kelso served as the chairman of the unit’s advisory committee from 1965 to 1968.

The school was headquartered at that time downtown at the Harvey Mansion. After the school became an independent college, it was relocated in 1971 to its current location on the New Bern campus at 800 College Court.

Kelso was the board chairman during the purchase and development of the land for that campus, and during the passage of a $5.5 million bond referendum that included $500,000 for the building project, according to a college history on the Web site cravencc.edu. There is a building on the campus, Kelso Hall, that is named for him.

Thurman Brock, the college’s founding president, said Kelso’s leadership set the tone for the college. He instituted some of ways the board now does business, such as its tradition of meeting quarterly, and its election of a new chairman every two years.

“I cannot overemphasize the importance of his leadership in setting the tone for the success of what our college is experiencing now, by the way the board operates,” Brock said.

New Bern resident Chris Kelso, Lynn Kelso’s son, said his father was a “fundamental believer in applied education.” He said his father was passionate about giving Craven County residents skills so they could continue to live and work in the county.

David Ward, who has been the college’s board attorney from 1965 until now, said there was an “outflow of brains” going on at the time.

“The times were, that jobs were hard to come by,” Ward said. “If you didn’t have skills in a usable trade, or an education in some business, you were not going to get a job.”

Ward said community college programs had started throughout the state, and Kelso believed county residents “needed a way to train people here, locally.”

“He was not anti-liberal arts, but he recognized that a lot of people just need applied skills that they could take, and that not everybody’s going off to college,” Chris Kelso said.

“He was very serious about making sure that everybody got a chance,” Ward said.

Kelso added that his father had gone through a career transition in his own life, and recognized the need to have training available for others to be able to do the same.

Lynn Kelso was a pilot in the Marine Corps for 20 years, serving in World War II and in the Korean War. He retired while he was stationed at the Cherry Point air station, and went to the public library to teach himself to work in real estate insurance business. He co-founded Beasley-Kelso & Associates with another naval aviator.

 “He experienced a mid-life change if you will in career, and he recognized that there are working people, blue collar people, that have to do the same things,” Chris Kelso said.

Kelso also served on the State Board of Community Colleges, and was elected vice-chairman. Kelso said his father made a point to travel to each community college in the state.

“He was instrumental in the creation of Craven Community College, and was a tireless supporter of both our institution and the N.C. Community College System for nearly two decades,” said college President Catherine Chew. “I join the Board of Trustees and all my Craven Community College colleagues in saluting Mr. Kelso’s service to our country, to Craven County and to our college.”

Laura Oleniacz can be reached at 252-635-5675 or at loleniacz@freedomenc.com.