Kilgore Junior College

Gregg County

Kilgore, TX

This page provides a list of the yearbooks from Kilgore Junior College that are available in our archives. Copies can be ordered at a rate of $1.00 per page. Please email us for instructions on how to order and make payment. We can copy any pages you request, and you have the option to pick them up or have them mailed to you.

You are welcome to visit our archives to research the yearbooks. Please contact us via email or call (903) 592-5993 to let us know when you plan to visit and what you are researching. We will do our best to have relevant materials prepared to make your trip more efficient and productive.

We are collaborating with the East Texas Genealogical Society to index the yearbooks. We will upload the indexed records as they become available. If the year you are interested in is not currently listed, please check back later, as we appreciate any donations of yearbooks and other materials related to Smith County. Click here for more information.

We have the following years:

History of Kilgore College

According to the brief history researched and written by Bonnie Durning and Doris Bolt, each a retired Kilgore College history instructor, W. L. Dodson, superintendent of the Kilgore Independent School District, urged the board to take the necessary steps to create a junior college; and they authorized him to bring in B. E. Masters, president of Amarillo Junior College, to assist in the actual implementation of the plan. Mr. Masters came in April of 1935 and met with the board of education. In August, the board formally named Mr. Dodson as president with Mr. Masters as dean. In order to begin classroom instruction by fall, all parties concerned agreed that the college should be operated by the Kilgore Independent School District and would temporarily utilize the public school facilities. Thus, Kilgore College opened in the fall of 1935 with 11 faculty members and 229 students.

In 1946, the Board of Trustees of the Kilgore Independent School District issued invitations to neighboring common and independent school districts, inviting them to join a union district for junior college purposes. Seven districts—Sabine, White Oak, Leverett’s Chapel, London, Overton, Gaston, and Gladewater—have since joined the Kilgore College District. The college district is now directed by a board of trustees of nine members elected by the individual districts. Kilgore College received recognition by the Southern Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges in 1936, and by 1940, had the largest enrollment of any public junior college in the South. In 1948, it was the second junior college in the nation in the number of transfers to senior colleges.