Lee College

The plaque names the 1966 prison program but not the two men behind it. Walter Rundell, an original 1934 faculty member, became dean in 1945 and, with an absentee president, guided the college until he retired in January 1967. The Huntsville classes were suggested by his longtime friend George Beto, director of the Texas Department of Corrections from 1962 to 1972, a Lutheran minister who had helped start an early prison high school equivalency testing program in 1956. Soon after he retired, Lee College had more prison inmates in college courses than any other college in the nation.

What the plaque says

Lee College In 1934, during the Great Depression and after several years of planning, the residents of the Goose Creek Independent School District voted to establish Lee Junior College, stressing the importance of higher education opportunities for area residents. One hundred seventy-seven students registered during the fall 1934 semester, and paid less than $15 per semester in fees. The junior college first shared facilities with Robert E. Lee High School, and classes met at night. In 1935 four women made up the first graduating class, and vocational education was inaugurated with a non-credit class in child psychology. The school's name was changed to Lee College in 1948, and a separate campus was first utilized in 1951. In 1965, the college separated from Goose Creek C.I.S.D. and obtained its own board of regents. Lee College instituted a college level program in Huntsville at the Texas Department of Corrections in 1966, becoming a pioneer in prison education. The program was designed to reduce recidivism of inmates by offering them educational opportunities, and remains a vital part of the college's programming. The Lee College honors program was established in 1974 to serve gifted and highly motivated students by preparing them for success in education and employment opportunities. Classes in the program are taught in a seminar format, and several scholarships are awarded through the program based on academic excellence. Lee College continues today to offer academic as well as vocational-technical and continuing education classes to the residents of Baytown and the surrounding area. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836 - 2011

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 6.2 mi
  The 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.
• Space Center Houston — 14 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
• Emancipation Park — 23 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 24 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.

More markers nearby

• George Washington Carver High School — 0.5 mi
• City of Baytown — 0.5 mi
• The Baytown Sun — 0.7 mi
• Baytown Mexican School — 1.5 mi