Growing Up
Morgan Hill
Written By Jordan Rosenfeld
W
hile some still consider Morgan Hill a rural town
compared to the bustle of other Silicon Valley cities,
former city council member GREG SELLERS grew
up in a Morgan Hill most people wouldn’t recognize. He, his two
siblings, and their parents lived in the largely undeveloped Llagas
Valley on an acre of property. With El Toro to the south, and wide
open hillsides to the north, Sellers tells
TODAY , “We had
hundreds of acres we would just roam in whenever we wanted to,
and ride our horses.”
Now, as the father of four children, ages 10, 15, 18, and 26 with
local fitness instructor Suzi Sellers, he expresses nostalgia for what
seemed like safer times. “It was, in some ways, an idyllic way to
grow up. My dad had a horn he’d blow when it was time for us to
come in,” he adds with a laugh. “What I wish I could have given
to my kids was the breadth of experience that I had, whether it was
caring for a wide range of animals, including horses, etc., or fixing
cars because you needed them to go somewhere, or just being able
to go out in a huge field and explore. I find that my own kids are
aware of a lot more than I was, mostly due to the Internet, but they
have not done nearly as many things as I did at their age.”
The same qualities that made for a safe, idyllic childhood, were
at times cloying as a teen, however, and the lack of proximity to
any other big towns instilled a desire to get his driver’s license as
quickly as possible. That meant getting a job washing dishes at Hill
Country, a restaurant at Morgan Hill’s unique car and air museum.
“I worked washing dishes, saving money to get a car because that’s
what you did when you turned 16, so you could go somewhere.”
When he graduated Live Oak High School in 1976, only half of
the 600 or so students in his school graduated high school, he says.
“Half of those who did graduate did not go on to college. Half
of those who did go on to college went local, to Gavilan, and the
majority of those who went to a four-year college went to San José
State. I had it in my mind I wanted to go somewhere.”
This urge to “go somewhere” persisted. He chose UC Santa
Cruz, majoring in American Studies with an emphasis on labor
history. However, an opportunity to volunteer for Senator Gary
gmh
36
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
Hart’s 1984 Presidential campaign took him to New Hampshire
for several months, where the seed for politics took root, and
exposed him to a wide variety of “interesting people” not the least
of whom were Colorado congresswoman Pat Schroeder and the
author Stephen King.
In 1989 he returned to Morgan Hill to run a local nonprofit,
the Downtown Revitalization Program, where he helped start the
now popular Taste of Morgan Hill, and in 1991 he met his wife-
to-be, Suzi, also a lifetime resident.
After leaving the Downtown Program he started working as
a consultant on political campaigns, and eventually Sellers him-
self ran for a seat on Morgan Hill’s city council. “The council
at the time was dysfunctional, so there was a strong feeling
among a group of us that we needed to step up. I got a lot of
encouragement, but nobody expe