ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
What was once a grocery store is now home to a new campus for Liberal’s community college, and community members celebrated the opening of the new campus Monday afternoon with a ribbon cutting hosted by the Liberal Chamber of Commerce.
For several years, officials with Seward County Community College had been looking for a new home for its rapidly expanding truck driving and CDL programs, and with the former Walmart Neighborhood Market building available on Western Avenue, school leaders found a home for those programs and others.
Prior to the cutting of the ribbon, SCCC officials, along with those from Conestoga Energy, the project’s primary donors, spoke to those on hand for the ceremony.
SCCC President Brad Bennett praised the work of those who helped transform the building into a campus.
“It is funny when you start with an idea to buy a building and watch it come to fruition and transform a space into something our community will have for years to come,” she said. “I want to say a huge ‘thank you’ to the Board of Trustees and their continued support for some of the ideas I have and looking at different things we can do for our students. A big ‘thank you’ to the foundation board for all their help with this. A huge ‘thank you’ to OC Quality Homes, our general contractor on this project, Architect One for all their work.”
SCCC Board of Trustees member Keeley Moree later announced the name of the new campus as the Conestoga Innovation Center at West Campus in honor of the company’s contribution to the project.
“Projects like these could not have happened without the support of business donors and those who have stepped up to really make a commitment towards our community, and we greatly appreciate what you’ve been able to do, not just for our college, but to reach in and impact the lives of the students who will be going through this program returning home and serving their families,” Moree said.
Conestoga CEO Tom Willis said it was his company’s pleasure and privilege to be able to invest in both the college and its community.
“The growth I’ve seen this institution go through, the value it’s brought back to Liberal has amazed me,” he said. “When we were approached about investing in this, it was no questions asked. We wanted to do it.”
Willis said many larger schools see students take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans with little to show for it following their days in higher education.
“This school right here, with this Innovations Center, for a 10th of that, when they come out, they’re employment ready, and there’s good jobs waiting for them,” he said. “What that means to this community, what it means to our company to be able to keep help here in the community means everything to us.”
Conestoga investor and board member Nick Hatcher called Monday’s ceremony a special moment.
“It’s a result of vision, hard work and heart, and it’s a moment we are proud to be a part of,” he said. “When Conestoga chose to invest in this, it wasn’t just about a building or a brand. It was about legacy. It was about doing something now that outlives us all.”
Hatcher, a Liberal native, said many of those on hand for Monday’s ribbon cutting have seen the community through its ups and downs.
“What’s always moved me personally is the people, the grit, the pride, the way we show up for each other,” he said. “That’s the legacy we want to honor, not just by remembering the past, but by investing in the future.”
Hatcher said all too often, the young people of Seward County feel they have to leave Southwest Kansas in order to build a life, and that is something he wants to see changed.
“They go looking for opportunities we should be creating for them right here at home. That’s what Seward County Community College and this space is all about,” he said. “That’s why we give. We’re not just naming a building. We’re opening doors for the next generation of families, makers and dreamers. This is a place where they can see a future for themselves right here where they don’t have to choose between success and staying home. They can have both.”
Hatcher said Monday was just the beginning of what is to come for SCCC.
“Our hope is today lights a spark others will see what’s possible when we believe in our hometown and back it up and action,” he said. “To every young person out there, we see you. We believe in you, and we’re building this for you. Let’s leave a legacy worth staying for right here.”
Both Bennett and SCCC Vice President of Career and Technology Education Dr. Amber Jones said the project could not have happened without the work of many.
“I just want to say thank you to my staff, maintenance and all their work and the people who were helping me paint over the weekend,” Bennett said.
Jones too said the project took a team effort, including Bennett making visits to Washington D.C. to get federal funds, as well as grant writing.
Jones also recognized the work of SCCC Vice President of Business Affairs Maddie Day
“Maddie does an incredible job with grant reporting and making sure those funds are utilized correctly at the right time, and she does such an incredible job,” Jones said.
With the truck driving program, Jones said Bennett and Day have both been instrumental in communicating what the school’s needs are and what is needed to expand the program.
“We already have doubled our enrollment in truck driving this year, and we look for that to happen more and more as we expand,” Jones said.
Jones added the project could not have happened without teamwork and communication.
“We had to throw ideas at each other,” she said. “We had to get an architect in here to figure out what needs to go where and get input from our instructors, program directors. We really had to think holistically not just about our immediate needs, but where we are going to be going and growing.”
As for the building itself, there are finished classrooms in place, and Bennett said SCCC is waiting on just a little more help from the federal government before beginning Phase Two.
“This property sits on 12 acres,” he said. “It’s 42,000 square feet. When we go to the south here, we’ll also have our diesel tech programs. We’ll have our adult education center. We’ll have innovation space. We’ll have about a 12,000-foot conference center as well.”
Bennett said the facility can also be used by USD 480 with Liberal High School neighboring the property and other community partners.
“We’re ecstatic for it,” he said.
Board of Trustees member Dustin Ormiston, like others, said the project was a long time coming.
“One of the main goals of a community college is to benefit the community and provide quality education and access to the people in that community,” he said. “What makes this project so special is the team that has gone into this project. We’ve got the staff, the administration that have participated in this. We’ve got industry and commercial supporters in this. We have legislators on both the state and federal level.”
Ormiston said the amount of collaboration seen on the project has been unusual.
“The benefits of this project don’t only benefit Seward County, the city of Liberal, but it’s more regional,” he said. “This is a program and a project that’s going to benefit far greater than that.”
Ormiston said the truck driving program has already collaborated with Garden City Community College about an hour to the north of Liberal.
“In this instance, we are helping provide the instruction and the expertise in this program to help them serve their community as they help us with different programs to serve our community,” he said.
Ormiston said this kind of collaboration provides a huge impact for not only Southwest Kansas, but all of the Sunflower State.
“This is one of the projects we’re most proud about, but it’s only one of the projects we have going on that have been completed in the last year,” he said. “We have an Allied Health facility that, in the same manner, took more than an institution to accomplish it.”
For Ormiston, bringing the project to fruition took a community and the desire to provide opportunity for everybody with that community to help business and community to gain greater access.
“This is just the beginning of a project that will have a lot of opportunity and expectation into the future,” he said.
Board of Trustees member Kelly Hill said with the vacant retail space available for use, SCCC leaders saw an opportunity to use what he called a dead spot in the community.
“It had so many restrictions,” he said. “Nothing was going to be done with it. People had an idea and said we can make that happen, and they did.”
Hill too said the project could not have been possible without the help of many local investments, and as primary supporter of the project, he said Conestoga not only helped with the new West Campus, but with other numerous college projects throughout the years.
“We’d specifically like to thank Seaboard, the Cooper Clark Foundation, National Carriers, National Beef and Double L Transport and of course Conestoga,” he said.
Jones said having the West Campus facility now in place means a lot, particularly with the opportunity to have not only the truck driving program there, but also the school’s diesel technology and other programs there as well.
“We really have an extreme demand for truck driving with our region being so rural and landlocked,” she said. “Being able to have this shows our community and our faculty and staff we’re trying to do what’s best for the community. It’s been a long time coming.”
Having the truck driving program at the new Conestoga Innovation Center, Jones said, also means upgrading it from its small longtime home on SCCC’s Industrial Technology campus.
“The grant and the federal funds and all the entities that have supported, including Conestoga, has meant we haven’t had to utilize funds to provide this,” she said. “It means a lot.”
Jones called being able to utilize the former of home of the Neighborhood Market fantastic.
“We have so many opportunities,” she said. “This is just Phase One. We’ve got just the classrooms here, and we’ll work on diesel classes, maybe adult ed classes and hopefully even have a conference center at some point.”
Jones said the school is looking at some other great opportunities, but for now, she likes the convenience of having the space of the building that now houses the West Campus and being able to use it.
“We can work with the high school and offer CDL hopefully in the near future to high school students who are 18 years old, and that’s going to be really exciting because we’re just going to be a stone’s throw away,” she said.
In Phase Two of the project is where SCCC’s diesel technology program will be brought to the West Campus.
“Currently, this does not have any shop space,” Jones said. “We will have to, in Phase Two, actually build a three-bay shop to accommodate their training that’s in the shop, not in the classroom.”
Before diesel technology and adult education are brought to the Conestoga Innovations Center, Jones said a range will need to be done for the truck driving program. With truck drivers lacking in Southwest Kansas, as well as across the U.S., she said the new home of the program will have an impact on the amount of available drivers.
“Labor market data shows we have a need for 2,000 truck drivers a year in our area,” she said. “I don’t know that we’ll get exactly to that mark, but we’re sure try to make a dent.”
Like others at Monday’s ribbon cutting, Jones too is excited for this moment in SCCC’s history.
“It’s been a long time coming,” she said. “We’re very excited, and this is just the first step in the process.”
