News Releases
News from Lane Community College
For release June 8, 2010
 |
Ed Ragozzino, photo couresty of LCC Archives |
Right here in River City - a theater named for Ed Ragozzino
EUGENE, OR – The Ragozzino Performance Hall will be the new name of the main theater at Lane Community College when the Board of Education passes a resolution honoring Ed Ragozzino at it's June 9 meeting.
The resolution will be presented at about 6:30 p.m. Public comment will be invited. Ragozzino's widow, Roxy, is expected to attend.
Ragozzino founded the performing arts program at Lane and directed it for 18 years from 1968 to 1986. He brought 30,000 patrons a year to campus for events, especially musicals, according to the resolution. Many college and community members suggested the naming, including faculty and staff from the Division of the Arts who developed the resolution.
"It is fitting that the performance hall that Ed Ragozzino worked tirelessly to establish should bear his name," says President Mary Spilde. "He left a lasting legacy to Lane Community College in creating performing arts programs that have endured, as well as outstanding musical theater. We are pleased to be able to honor Ed's inspirational leadership in the arts and his contributions to Lane and the broader community."
Ragozzino helped design the hall that will bear his name. "In all honesty, we ended up with one of the finest theatres," he said in an oral history interview available online from the college archives at 2011sitearchive.lanecc.edu/archives/OH-RagozzinoE.htm. That opinion is still shared by many performing arts professionals today.
Before joining Lane, Ragozzino founded the drama program at what's now known as South Eugene High. After leaving the college, he helped found the Eugene Festival of Musical Theater and was a driving force behind the creation of the Hult Center. He died of cancer at age 79 in January 2010.
Lane is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.
###
Media contact: Joan Aschim, PIO, (541) 463-5591, aschimj@lanecc.edu
