by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — More than 75 people attended the Cowley College Sumner Campus kickoff breakfast this morning at the Raymond Frye Complex in Wellington.

It was also the first event that featured drawings of the proposed campus.

Cowley College is proposing to build a Sumner campus in Wellington providing the half-cent sales tax question is approved by voters. The question will be on the November 8 general election ballot.

If passed, Dr. Dennis Rittle, President of Cowley College, said the money will go toward the construction of the campus and the operation cost sustainability of the campus over a 10-year period. By that time the voters will need to decide the funding mechanism thereafter.

There was still no commitment of the exact location of the campus, nor a dollar figure presented. But the digital renderings did show that the campus will be a newly built facility that will require some space. There are no plans to build dorms.

Much of what was presented, had been spoken about before concerning the benefits of having the campus here. This time, though, it included testimonies from various people of the community.

Lori Day, an executive for GKN Aerospace in Wellington, said the proposed campus is essential for this company’s machining training.

“We are really, really excited with the opportunity to train employees and future employees right here in Wellington,” Day said. “The opportunities for us is long term and strategic.”

Wellington vocational agriculture instructor Linda Chase said the opportunity to teach agriculture classes here is exciting. Her students are now traveling 23 miles to Mulvane and that limits student participation.

Argonia Superintendent Julie Dolley said currently it takes an Argonia student 65 miles to drive to Ark City to attend a class. She said she is excited about a proposed campus in Wellington which would cut that travel time more than half.

Rittle said Wellington was chosen for the campus because it is the center of the county and is readily available to everyone in the county within a 25-mile radius.

Rittle also estimated that the Wellington campus will have 800 full-time enrollment students at the Wellington campus. Right now he said there are 555 students enrolled at either Ark City and Mulvane.

Stacy Davis, Sumner County Economic Director, said the new dollars generated from such a campus is phenomenal. There will be $48.5 million in federal money, $14.7 million in shared money, and $12.9 million in new job creation to Sumner County. She said an estimated $2.6 million of new money will be pumped into the economy.

She also said a Sumner County campus will increase the communities’ economic productivity and earning capacity, and stem local entrepreneurship.

“Let me assure you, I have a good relationship with site selectors, whose jobs are to look at various prospective locations for their industries,” Davis said. “They are very, very excited about having a college campus here.”

Rittle said Cowley County is currently No. 11 of over 100 counties in Kansas in creating new manufacturing jobs. He attributed it to Cowley College’s campus presence in Ark City. Someone asked about how to sell to the ‘legacy’ voter – those who no longer have children in college.

Rittle said the campus will be readily available for any civic group to host events and helping their grandchildren with costs.

State Rep. candidate Anita Judd-Jenkins said in the last 40 years, seven new buildings have been built in Ark City for the Cowley Campus including four dormitories. She said over the years Ark City not only has a larger number of skilled employees but also have a group of students who stay in the community and become working members of the retail and marketing sector.

The cost of college was brought up and Riddle emphasized that a large percentage of students go to Cowley to keep their college costs down instead of going to a four-year institution right off the bat.

Someone asked to compare the Mulvane campus to the one proposed in Wellington. Rittle said the Wellington campus will be four times bigger and will have significantly more classes.

Jessica Lucas, who is a the campaign manager for the Cowley-Sumner Campus proposal, said she thinks the vote will be very close and it will require everyone in the room to go out and convince others to vote yes.

“Rural communities are increasingly aging and people are making less money. This is part of an effort to reduce this trend,” Lucas said about the proposed campus. “If we do nothing and vote this down, the cost of living here is going to continue to go up, but it will be spread among fewer people.”

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