Alumni Memory - William "Bill" Strege

The first day of class for Everett Junior College commenced on Sept. 8, 1941. That day, the very first group of students posed for this photo inside a classroom at Lincoln Elementary School in downtown Everett.

In a suit and tie, William "Bill" Strege sat in the front row, fourth from the left. 

In April 2019, EvCC Vice President of College Advancement John Olson shared the photo with Bill's son John Strege. John shared these memories with EvCC: 

"Hi John. Wow, what a pleasant surprise to receive this. Yes, he is my father. He passed away 10 years ago next month, two months after his wife, our mother, had died. They'd been married 62 years. He was one of three sons, but he was a surprise -- he arrived 11 and 10 years after his brothers (my uncles). He was one of the most outgoing, gregarious people you'd ever meet, hence his sitting in the front row, no doubt.

"What I recall from his time at Everett Junior College was that he played on the basketball team -- most of the men already had gone into the service, so there weren't a lot left to field a respectable basketball team. He loved to tell the story of how he was the leading scorer in a game against the University of Washington freshmen at Hec Edmundson Pavilion in Seattle. I believe he scored five points and they got blown out.

"He went on to the UW and was in officer's candidate school there. He became an officer in the Marine Corps toward the end of the war. He was en route to the Pacific theater when the atomic bombs were dropped, and wound up in China. He went into the reserves and was recalled briefly during the Korean War."

• John Strege
  Son of one of Everett Junior College's first students, William "Bill" Strege
  April 24, 2019

Bill met his wife Dorothy at Everett High School. She was three years younger and attended Washington State University. Married for 62 years, they had three sons: Leonard, John and David. In 2019, Leonard was retired, John worked for Golf Digest magazine, and David wrote blog posts for a USA Today website.