The following letter was printed in Campus News on Monday,
November 10, 1980

Editor's Note: Betsy Bombeck, daughter of the columnist Erma Bombeck, was elected president of SCC during the 1978-79 academic year. The following letter was handed out to students in November of 1978.

Dear Students,
Nearly eight years ago, just after Scottsdale Community College had opened, the students of his school held the largest student election in Arizona history.

Forty percent of the students voted (5% to 10% usually vote in student elections nationwide) and overwhelmingly chose (by 80%) an artichoke as school mascot.

Eight years have gone by and current students probably don't understand why their predecessors got so excited over a vegetable. I'm writing this letter to you to let you know what is unique about our school and our student government so that we don't drop the ball this year.

When SCC first opened in 1970, students were told that our school was going to be different and that SCC students were going to have a voice in the way their school was run.

SCC's first student government took these democratic promises very seriously, with their first student government budget the SCC student senate set aside money to provide for eleven scholarships for the Indians on whose land the school was built.

Money was also set aside to provide for a day care center so that people with children could attend SCC.

The school administration reacted by vetoing the day care center and telling the student government that unless the money set aside for the Indians went instead for the recruitment of out-of-state athletes (there was not one person from Arizona on SCC's first Basketball team) the entire student activities budget would be taken away from the students.

When the student newspaper sought to inform SCC students what was going on, the paper was censored and the first faculty sponsor was removed, and then, after canceling every semblance of student rights at SCC, school administrators magnanimously allowed SCC students to select their mascot.

The result was the Artichoke. The selection of the artichoke made headlines nationwide and gave SCC students the newspaper coverage needed to put their case across to the public.

Originally, then, the Artichoke was a gimmick used to alert local newspapers to an athletic budget that included $5000 to purchase books so that out-of-state athletes wouldn't have to pay for their own texts as local students did.

It was a means of telling the public about a school administration which built a $1.7 million gym complete with saunas for the out-of-staters while most SCC students were attending classes in wooden temporaries.

During the following years SCC students worked to elect community college board members who recognized students as human and as having rights like other citizens.

As a result of student political efforts the artichoke was finally officially made the school mascot after several administration vetoes of the results of mascot elections originally promised by the administration.

Betsy A. Bombeck