Spring 2025 Honor's Ceremony Del Mar College May 14, 2025 5:00pm

DMC alumnus, player on college’s last Vikings football team and retired dentist Dr. Wayne Morris serving as commencement speaker.Originally from Goldthwaite, Texas, Dr. Morris lived in Hebbronville for six years before moving with his family to Corpus Christi at age 11. An angler from a young age, he caught a nearly 7-foot-long tarpon off the old Bob Hall Pier at age 12, a fish longer than he was tall.The W.B. Ray High School graduate attended Del Mar College before graduating from Baylor University with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. He then completed his studies at The University of Texas School of Dentistry at Houston. Dr. Morris retired from his local practice after 50 years of providing dental care to his patients.As a young athlete, Dr. Morris played football on the Ray High School team and was a senior when “The Fighting Texans” won the state championship in 1959. He then played on Del Mar College’s football team in 1960 when the Vikings won the Pioneer Conference Championship for a second year in a row. That year was also the last that the college fielded a football team. The DMC freshman also served as president of his class during the 1960-1961 academic year.Dr. Morris is a member of the Nueces Valley District Dental Society and has served in every board position, including the presidency. He is a longtime member of the American Dental Association and Texas Dental Association. He earned a fellowship in 1992 from the Academy of General Dentistry after completing 1,500 hours of continuing dental education and passing a comprehensive exam covering the field.Father of three sons and grandfather to five children, Dr. Morris has coached Youth Football and Little League Baseball for 30 years. Two Little League teams even made their way to the state championship tournament, and one player coached by Dr. Morris moved through the ranks all the way to Major League Baseball.For over 55 years, Dr. Morris has attended the First Christian Church of Corpus Christi where he has served as a Congregational Elder for more than 40 years. He has been married to his Ray High School sweetheart, Janet, since 2018.

"Upward Mobility" Presentation

Regular Meeting of the Del Mar College Board of Regents for Tuesday May 13, 2025.

Called Meeting of the Audit Committee of the Del Mar College Board of Regents for Wednesday April 30, 2025.

On April 14, 2025, Del Mar College and South Texas Family Planning & Health Care representatives announced a “joint health venture” and provided tours of the organization’s health care clinic on wheels, which is a 40-foot trailer featuring equipment and services that you can find in a regular doctor’s office. The partnership will bring health care services to students on all three of the college’s campuses––Heritage, Windward and Oso Creek––on a scheduled monthly basis.

Through their partnership with the Texas Urban Council, Corpus Christi ISD has received grant funding in support of their continued work to prepare students for post-secondary success. The $569,417 in grant funding provided by Commit Partnership will be used to expand early college access, including partnering with Del Mar College. The four-year grant will help students access early college coursework, experience quality advising, and improve districtwide systems targeting higher levels of early college/dual enrollment coursework and increased enrollment in a post-secondary institution immediately upon graduation. More details can be found at https://www.ccisd.us/article/2124455.

In 2014, Del Mar College District voters approved a $157 million bond referendum to fund capital improvements on the Heritage and Windward campuses. Those project list included the William F. White, Jr. Library on the Heritage Campus. The White Library was originally built to support five floors and first opened in October 1967 with two floors. In 1979, the college added the third through fifth floors, finishing the top floor for use in 1998. The facility’s namesake served as a Del Mar College Regent for 33 years from 1951 until 1984. To celebrate the completion of the renovation project, the College held an Open House on April 10, 2025, to allow the general public an opportunity to view the transformation in person. Retired DMC librarian Alan Berecka read an original poem called “All Aboard” to close the public remarks portion of the event.

On April 1, 2025, Del Mar College’s Transportation Training Services (TTS) provided transportation for The Wall That Heals memorial replica exhibit to its next destination – Laredo. Del Mar College TTS instructors Mark Vela and Alvin Amador drove the exhibit from the College’s Windward Campus in Corpus Christi, Texas, to an organizing location where the Laredo Police Department and local Vietnam War veterans met up to lead the DMC team on a parade route through the streets of Laredo before delivering the exhibit to its display site.

Regular Meeting of the Del Mar College Board of Regents for Tuesday April 8, 2025.