Our Alums: Sac State's Student #1

David C. Morse

David C. Morse (Education, '49) is accustomed to being first--although he didn't always intend to be.

Morse was the first student to enroll at Sacramento State College. In early September 1947 Morse went to the new college, located at the time at the Sacramento City College campus near Land Park, to enroll. Among the only people he could find was then-President Guy West and his secretary unpacking boxes. As it turned out enrollment wasn't actually set to begin until Sept. 19.

"I didn't go out there to break any records," he says. "I just wanted them to enroll me."

Morse didn't discover his official claim to Hornet fame until many years later. "I never knew I was the first person," says Morse, whose historic enrollment is now documented in the University's archives. "I had no idea."

Morse was among the first to establish student life at the emerging college by expanding the activities of the student council. He oversaw the contests held to establish the University's fight and alma mater songs, and organized a long-standing annual student picnic at Elk Grove Park.

"The thing of it is, a college has to feel like it is a college," Morse says. "I thought we were all a bunch of loose people walking around here not really knowing each other or with any kind of unity."

Morse was the first president of the Alumni Association, the second vice president of the student council and co-chair of the first senior ball.

While he was not the first student to graduate from Sacramento State College—another student with previous credits graduated a year earlier—he was in the first graduating class that had more than one student, in 1949. That year marked the first time a brother-sister pair graduated together. Morse's sister Barbara E. Morse graduated alongside him with a bachelor's degree in elementary education.

He was also among the first to graduate at the current campus site when he received his master's degree in education in 1953, and he is believed to be the only person to graduate from both campuses.

After graduating, Morse taught at Galt High School. He worked at Elk Grove High School for 25 years, 22 of them as a student counselor. After retiring from teaching, he worked for several years as a public education consultant and wrote the book Triad Education.

He has received the Most Outstanding Order of the Hornet Award. He also received the Distinguished Service Award from the Alumni Association in 1990.