Long May We Live, the documentary chronicling Colorado Mesa University’s first hundred years, was never supposed to be a documentary.
It began as a race against time. In 2024, CMU alumni Herry Fuentes, ’24, and Jaden Quan, ’22, co-founders of the production company Jhova Media, embarked on a project to capture the stories of CMU’s historical living legends on film while it was still possible. The effort coincided with the CMU Century Project, a celebration of the university’s 100th anniversary during the 2025-2026 school year.
“We were doing it for archiving purposes, but we were like, ‘There’s a story here,’ and decided to turn it into a documentary,” Quan said.
Nearly two years of interviews and archive deep dives followed before the centennial documentary premiered at the Asteria Theatre in October 2025.
“This is very interesting hidden history,” Quan said. “I felt like an archaeologist digging into the history of my hometown and realizing there was a lot of history that I don’t think would have otherwise been unearthed.”
For Quan, who graduated from CMU in 2022, working beside CMU President Emeritus Tim Foster on the project brought his story full circle. He attended CMU on a full-ride scholarship through the RISE program, a pathway Foster spearheaded as president.
Fuentes, who came to CMU from Eagle County as a Guardian Scholar, graduated in 2024 with degrees in film and finance. The duo behind Jhova Media met while working together in CMU’s Marketing Department as students, and in 2023, Fuentes approached Quan with a vision for the company.
“At the time, my classmates had ambitions of going to L.A. and places like that, but I just wanted to hardscrabble it and see what we could do right here on our own,” Fuentes said.
Since then, the pair has produced several original social impact documentary films and many promotional videos for companies across the Grand Valley.
“I see Grand Junction as a place of immense opportunity, and CMU is the motivating factor in that,” Quan said.