By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
Construction progress is coming along on Barton Community College’s new Ag Technology Center on the east side of the Great Bend campus. Roughly 75% of the concrete has been poured and the steel structure is up on the 14,000 square-foot facility that will house a Top Tech Program to provide training to become Case New Holland technicians.
Along with the equipment technician
program, the facility will provide a space for the CDL program, crop protection
and animal science program. Barton’s Executive Director of Workforce Training
Mary Foley said agriculture students will be provided chances to learn with
livestock on campus.
"This will be hands-on experience for students," said Foley. "They get that experience now because we take them on numerous fieldtrips, but when your class is only two hours and you have to drive 20 or 30 minutes to get to your fieldtrip site, it doesn't provide you much time to get that hands-on experience. This will allow us to bring animals to campus and for the students to get more time."
Harbin Construction is handling the $3.2 million construction project with many
local subcontractors assisting. Barton was awarded an ARPA grant from the
Kansas Department of Commerce for the development. The federal award is a
matching grant up to $1.8 million. Barton Foundation Director Lindsey Bogner
said finding the matching funds from donors is still a work in progress.
"We have two large in-kind donations that I'm still getting values for," said Bogner. "We're getting a new tractor and a scale. We're going to have those updates, number wise for the match for the grant, next time. Right now, we are meeting with one of our largest potential donors on Friday. Hopefully, we'll have some good news."
Barton has to have the rest of the grant money matched by next June. The Top
Tech Program has availability for 16 students, and Barton currently has three
students ready to enroll for the fall semester.
