DACC honors Mary Miller's legacy with documentary

Sep. 16—There would be no Danville Area Community College if there were no Mary Lee Miller, say several former colleagues and family members in a documentary about her life that was aired at Bremer Conference Center on Monday.

Born in 1900, Miller held bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Illinois at a time when many women dropped out before high school. Miller began her career as an English teacher at Danville High School and across her decades' long career became chair of the English Department, advisor of the Drama Club, and a favorite of graduates like Dick Van Dyke and Bobby Short.

"Mary Miller was the one who encouraged me to try out for school plays. She told me she thought I had real talent," Dick Van Dyke was quoted as saying in the documentary. "Mary Miller was probably the most important influence in my life."

When veterans of World War II returned home to Vermilion County seeking an education with their G.I. Bill, Miller volunteered to teach them at the University of Illinois' new extension office at Danville High School.

When the U of I later asked the newly-established Danville Junior College to send those veterans to the Urbana-Champaign campus, Miller fought to establish a community college in Danville. Thanks to her, the school that would later become Danville Area Community College was officially established in 1949.

In 1966, Miller made history by becoming the first woman in the State of Illinois to be named president of a junior college, and there was only one other woman junior college president in the nation, according to the documentary. Miller held that position until she retired in 1972, when she was given the honor of President Emerita.

Miller's funeral services in July 1986 were held in the gym that bears her name and the Danville Jaguars basketball players were her pall-bearers, according to the documentary.

Peter Barrett, Professor of Video Production at DACC, was the driving force behind the documentary about Miller's life. It came about as a result of Barrett and a student worker putting together a previous documentary about Uncle Joe Canon, Barrett said.

"I had one particularly talented student who wanted to do a documentary and together we did and that one was so well-received that we decided to do another," Barrett says. "It started out as an exercise for the students but then we decided to try to bite off a really big project and do the story of Mary Miller."

Barrett says the most challenging aspect of producing the documentary was compiling the information to tell Miller's compelling story. The documentary, which Laura Hensgen, Assistant Vice President of Operations at DACC, plans to submit for a National Council for a Public and Marketing Relations award, follows Miller's career from English teacher at Danville High School until her death in 1986.

"The gathering of information was a challenge because there are so many sources," Barrett said. "From the Vermilion County Museum to the college records to Danville High School, she did a number of activities over the years."

The documentary will be available soon for viewing on DACC's YouTube page, Hensgen said.