‘He loved that college’: Richard G. Erzen, first College of Lake County president, dies at 96

Appointed in 1968, Erzen oversaw the development of the Grayslake campus

He left Lake County long ago, but educator Richard “Dick” Erzen considered being named the first president of the College of Lake County his most treasured career achievement.

“It was a big deal,” his daughter, Laura Dempsey, said. “He loved that college.”

Erzen died April 6 — his 96th birthday — in hospice care in the Bloomington-Normal area, his longtime home. He was content until the end with a daily root beer float, a long happy marriage, an empty bucket list and no regrets, according to Dempsey.

“His was a life very well-lived and, on his 96th birthday, Dick Erzen was ready to move on,” according an obituary Dempsey wrote.

He attended Northeast Missouri State (now Truman State) on a full basketball scholarship, and married Edie, a hometown girl, shortly after graduating in the early 1950s. The couple began careers in public service as teachers in Montgomery City, Missouri. Erzen earned a doctorate and became an administrator, while Edie continued to substitute teach while raising their children.

In June 1968, Erzen was working at Illinois Valley Community College in LaSalle County when he was appointed CLC’s first president. The family moved to Libertyville and lived there during Erzen’s 10-year tenure with CLC.

He was hired to supervise the initial physical development of the college that began as an organizing group in 1962 and officially was established via referendum in 1967.

“That was when community colleges were a new thing,” Dempsey said.

According to “Grayslake A Historical Portrait” published in 1994 by the Grayslake Historical Society, the college established temporary offices in Waukegan. In May 1968, a 181-acre parcel on the Avon-Warren townships line east of Grayslake was donated for a permanent campus.

“It was a dirt field,” Dempsey said. “They had classes in trailers for awhile.”

According to the historical society account, Erzen’s priorities were providing vocational/technical education, preparing students for success in four-year colleges and offering credit and noncredit courses for adults.

The board decided to build temporary classrooms on the donated site and hired an architectural firm to design the campus. CLC welcomed 2,360 full- and part-time students on Sept. 25, 1969. In December, a referendum to build, furnish and equip two of three phases of the proposed permanent campus was approved, according to the historical society.

Groundbreaking for the permanent campus was in April 1972 and completed in three phases in ensuing years.

Erzen was at the helm for that as well as the decisions involving college goals and objectives, forming career programs, recruiting staff and faculty, setting tuition costs and fees and applying for accreditation, according to the historical society.

He resigned from CLC in 1977 and left for a new challenge with the NCR Corporation in Dayton, Ohio, Dempsey said.

An educator at heart, he left NCR for central Illinois and in 1986 became a professor emeritus at Illinois State University in Normal, where he called home for the rest of his life.

His family and friends will miss his brilliance, wit, generosity and innate decency, according to his obituary. Survivors include his wife, Edie; a brother; daughter-in-law; son-in-law; several grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held May 4 at Luther Oaks Retirement Community in Bloomington. In lieu of flowers, the family encourages a contribution to a charity of your choice.