Speaker snippets from the DMC ceremony on Feb. 6, 2025On Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, Del Mar College officials held an unveiling of the newly renovated Memorial Classroom building, along with a new Texas Historical Commission marker recognizing Del Mar College as “a centerpiece of higher education in the Coastal Bend region.”Dr. Mark Escamilla, President and Chief Executive Officer, welcomed about 125 attendees and shared details about the renovation project. The Memorial Classroom Building now houses the college’s Executive Administrative Offices, Human Resources Office and the College Relations Office, among others.DMC Board of Regents Chair Carol A. Scott thanked the community for its support for the nearly $17.8 million modernization of the building. The project is part of the $157 million bond referendum passed by Del Mar College District voters in 2014 as part of Heritage Campus and Windward Campus capital improvement projects.In addition to other celebratory activities during the event, the college unveiled in front of Memorial Classroom Building a permanently installed Texas State Historical Marker provided by the Texas Historical Commission. The historical designation and marker resulted from two former DMC students, Troy Nessner and Preston Martin, initiating the process as part of a project in History Professor Dr. Mark Robbins’ class back in 2017. Completion of that process took two years before the college received the marker, and now, the marker has a permanent home with the Memorial Classroom Building renovation completed.Both Nessner––who is a 2019 DMC Hall of Fame inductee, a member of the Nueces County Historical Commission and now a graduate student at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi––and Dr. Robbins, who is with the college’s Social Sciences Department, spoke about the work that went into the project before the marker unveiling. More information is available at vikingnews.delmar.edu/