Typical Titan Alumni
In many ways, the four men are typical of the students that Cal State Fullerton has served: Three of the four grew up in Anaheim. Their roots range from working class to middle class. When it came to higher education, affordability was a priority. Cal State Fullerton, with its relatively low fees, provided the best opportunity for securing a college education and a brighter future.

Consider Johnson’s biography. Born in 1939, he grew up in Anaheim, a carpenter’s son who became fascinated with politics watching the 1952 Republican Convention “on a little black-and-white TV,” proudly aware that Orange County native Richard M. Nixon was Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s running mate. Johnson became an apprentice ironworker before graduating from Anaheim High School and worked in construction while attending Orange Coast College.

In 1962 he transferred to what was called Orange County State College, then in its second year of operation. “I even participated in a little protest to get the name changed,” Johnson recalls. Many students, it seems, didn’t like the sound of “Orange County State.” The campus then, he says, consisted of “these little temporary buildings and there were just a few hundred students.”

The future lawmaker pursued his passion for politics at Fullerton, arranging debates between local candidates and becoming active in the Young Republicans organization. On campus he met his future wife, Diane, also a history major. He interrupted his studies to join the Navy, serving as a corpsman in domestic posts, before returning to Fullerton to complete his degree in 1968.

Johnson figures he benefited from the flexibility of higher education in California. “We quite deliberately created a [higher education] system in California where young people and not-so-young people have repeated chances,” he says.

Royce’s background is similar. The son of a supervisor in a box-making factory, Royce grew up in Anaheim and worked weekends in his uncle’s lawn maintenance business while attending Katella High School.

Royce held a series of blue-collar jobs while working toward a degree in business administration. He also developed an interest in politics. Walking across campus one day, he noticed a heated conversation between “a young woman, a redhead” who was staffing a College Republicans table, and three young men, one of whom had rudely knocked her pamphlets to the ground. Royce says he decided to come to the redhead’s aid and managed to restore civility. That encounter led Royce to join the group, which he later chaired.

“The real advantage of the CSU system is that it gives people without means the ability to get a degree in an affordable way,” says Royce, who lives in Fullerton with his wife, Marie, a different redhead. “I think it’s been the backbone of California. It’s what has created the professional class that has helped drive the ingenuity and prosperity of California.”

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