Steve Schultz and David Rosales became friends in 1989 when they were chosen to work on the online program known as Banner for the Kern Community College District.

When Schultz was assigned to work on Banner, he was baffled that they would choose him. “I’d never used a mouse before. … But that was one of the most enlightening experiences of my life,” he said. When they met, Schultz was working as a counselor and Rosales was teaching history. That was nearly 30 years ago. On March 9, the two men met up on the BC campus to reminisce with their sons, Jonathan Schultz and Oliver Rosales, who have carried on their legacies as a counselor and history teacher, respectively.

It had been six years since Steve Schultz and David Rosales had last seen each other. “It’s not true, if he says anything. No, I wasn’t here when they turned the dirt over,” joked David Rosales.

During their reminiscing on March 9, much of the history that involves the four was covered.

David Rosales and his wife, Irene, brought their son to BC when he was only 3 days old. “My first memories of here were coming to the Christmas tree lightings,” Oliver Rosales said. “We have a picture of him as a three-year-old, and I had this red sombrero and he put it on his head. When he got his Ph.D. I told Irene, ‘God, did we know he was going to be a Chicano Studies professor?’” David Rosales said. Oliver Rosales was initially planning on teaching law, but when he sat in on his father’s classes, he felt drawn to teach history and decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. He decided to take a job at Bakersfield College rather than a university in another area of the country because his research on the United Farmers Workers was based in Kern County. He teaches most of his classes are located at the Delano campus.

After serving in the army, Steve Schultz went back to college at Fresno State University to study criminology and worked as an intern for a probation officer. “Three weeks before I was graduating, I had just finished my internship and I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t want to do this,’” he recalled.

Instead he continued his education and took another internship that introduced him to counselling. He worked as an academic adviser at Fresno State for seven years before getting hired as the first full-time Extended Opportunity Programs and Services counselor.

Jonathan Schultz also followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a counselor at Bakersfield College and hopes to receive his Doctor of Education in the future.

It was when Jonathan Schultz spoke to Oliver Rosales after the latter’s presentation on the Social Justice Institute that they first met.

“I dropped his name to my dad way back then and that’s when he mentioned for the first time that he knew his dad and I had to kind of put it together. I kind of forgot about it for a while, to be honest.” Jonathan Schultz was amazed by how many similarities the two families shared. Both fathers were veterans and each had a son then a daughter. As the next generation, Oliver Rosales and Jonathan Schultz mirrored their fathers by pursuing the same careers and sharing a parallel friendship.