Author: Eryn Dion, News Herald Reporter

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Oh what a difference 35 years makes.

From its humble beginnings in the 1970′s, when Bay District Schools, the business community and Gulf Coast Community College petitioned the legislature for a university in Bay County, to 1982, when the campus opened with “just a few buildings” and a resident faculty of four, to today, Florida State University Panama City has grown into an education hub for the county and the region.