LEADERSHIP
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
44
IRSC at 60
IRSC PHOTOS
Retiring IRSC president led college to
unprecedented growth, top college status
It was a hot night in July 1973 as 26-year-old Edwin
Massey drove his yellow Volkswagen Beetle along Florida’s
State Road 60 on his way to interview for a teaching
position at Indian River Community College.
In the passenger seat of the tiny car that had no air-conditioning
was his wife, Jo, with their two small daughters
in back, tuckered out from a day of battling the way kids in
backseats do on long road trips. With only headlights illuminating
their way, they drove along the desolate stretch, which
locals called Death Road 60.
“You couldn’t tell what was out there,” Massey recounted in
his soft Southern drawl during a recent interview. “It was really
spooky. We got halfway across 60 and I looked at Jo, and
she started crying, and she said, ‘Where are you taking me?’ ”
The family made it to a hotel in Vero Beach, where Jo and
the children spent their first full day in Florida playing in the
pool while Massey went to Fort Pierce for his interview with
administrators, who at that time were led by the school’s
second president, Herman Heise.
Massey, who had recently earned a doctorate in zoology with
an emphasis in marine biology from the University of Southern
Mississippi, was hired as one of three biology teachers. The
post paid $13,000, which was way more than he had ever made
as a graduate student subsisting on white beans and rice, or before
that as a teacher and football coach at his high school alma
mater in Laurel, Miss., 90 miles south of Jackson.
The young family moved to Vero Beach by the end of the
summer and Massey has remained at the college ever since.
Along the way, the Masseys had a third child, and now have
six grandchildren.
By 1979, he had moved from the classroom to the first of
a series of administrative positions, and in 1988, at 41, he
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IRSC President Dr. Edwin Massey has led the college for more than half of its 60-year existence. He is retiring in August.
BY BERNIE WOODALL