LAHARPE — Kansas Commissioner of Education Randy Watson visited the recently built Regional Rural Technical Center teaching facility on Thursday morning.
Watson was impressed with its current curriculum of welding and construction classes and saw the center as integral in the future of education in Kansas.
“This is a really great partnership with Neosho County and Fort Scott Community College and Allen County school districts,” Watson said. “It really is the model that we can look to replicate in the state of Kansas.
Ray Maloney, owner of Ray’s Metal Depot, donated the facility just south of LaHarpe to USD 257. Schools from Uniontown, Marmaton Valley and Colony also participate in its programs.
Both Fort Scott Community College and Neosho County Community College have students using the facility. FSCC sponsors a construction trades class and NCCC has the welding class.
The welding classes were added this fall.
“Everything is building up,” Maloney said. “We’ve been meeting with people from Cloud County Community College about wind farm generation and it looks like they love the facility after they came out and toured it. It looks like they want to build a satellite here, so I honestly believe we will have wind farm technology out here next year.”
Watson said he liked the collaboration between the school districts to make this possible.
“There’s a lot of school districts trying to do this by themselves with the colleges,” Watson said. “By coming together, and obviously having a private partnership, too, this is really a good model for everyone.”
Tech ed center draws praise
