Community Stadium to be site of EOU’s graduation for the first time since 2017

Published 9:00 am Friday, June 10, 2022

LA GRANDE — This weekend’s Eastern Oregon University commencement ceremony will bring back a tradition and provide a tale of inspiration.

The graduation ceremony, set to start at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, June 11, will be conducted at Community Stadium for the first time since 2017, according to Eastern officials.

Eastern’s graduation had been held at Community Stadium for about 25 years until turf work at the site and the COVID-19 pandemic forced venue changes. Commencement was moved to Quinn Coliseum when the process of installing artificial turf at Community Stadium was underway, and in 2020 and 2021 restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic prevented graduation from being conducted there.

Community Stadium, instead of being empty on graduation day, is expected to be filled with between 2,000 and 3,000 people to watch more than 350 students make their commencement walks. The students will be among the 675 who graduated from EOU in the 2021-22 school year, according to Tim Seydel, Eastern’s vice president for university advancement.

The June 11 ceremony will be the first graduation to take place on Community Stadium’s artificial turf. This means there will be no tents for graduating seniors to sit under as in years past. The reason is that post holes needed for tent poles cannot be punched through the artificial turf as they could be when there was natural grass at the stadium, Seydel said.

Opening a door

The Class of 2022 will receive words of inspiration from Abel Mendoza, a 1972 Eastern graduate and former chemistry professor at the university who is now a member of its board of trustees.

Mendoza grew up in Central Mexico and in 1968 moved to Union County for a year when he was an international student at Union High School for a year. He came to Union after meeting a group of Eastern students who were in Mexico attending a summer education program the school was conducting there.

Mendoza became a good friend of one of the students, Robert Sheehy, who invited him to come to Union and stay with his family for a year while attending Union High School. Mendoza, who had already earned a high school diploma in Mexico, went on to graduate from Union High School in 1969.

The youth, who had thought college was out of reach because his family was of modest means, then enrolled at Eastern after receiving a scholarship that covered his tuition. Mendoza graduated from Eastern in just three years and later earned a doctorate in chemistry from Washington State University. He was next hired by Dow Chemical, which he worked for in Midland, Michigan, for 26 years before retiring. Mendoza was so successful at Dow Chemical that in 1989 he received Eastern’s Distinguished Alumnus award for his work with the company.

A fortunate decision

Mendoza, after his career with Dow, was hired as a chemistry professor at Eastern in 2004 where he taught through 2014, before being appointed to a position on Eastern’s board of trustees.

Today, he credits much of his success in life to attending Eastern.

“Going to Eastern totally changed my life,” Mendoza said.

He noted that he had a job with a telephone company in Mexico when he first came to Union County and that he had considered making that his career. Mendoza was at a fork in the road in the late 1960s and he is thankful he decided to pursue a higher education.

“I walked into a dream,” he said.

The 10th child in a family of 15, Mendoza was the first in his family to attend college. Since then, 70% of his nephews and nieces have followed in his footsteps.

“I showed them that it could be done,” he said. “They realized then that education was the door to the middle class.”

Mendoza, who now lives in Haines with his wife, Sherry, wants to make EOU’s graduates appreciate how fortunate they are to have attended Eastern.

“Hopefully, I can convey just how special Eastern is,” he said.