By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Hillyard Technical Center is expanding.
The vo-tech school which has been a part of the St. Joseph community since 1943 will be adding space to help serve more students.
St. Joseph School Superintendent Gabe Edgar says the expansion has been a long time coming.
"It's really going to be great for the community, there's a lot of support out there, to be honest with you I think Hillyard's the biggest gym that we have here in St. Joseph," Edgar tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. "And we have to do a good job of marketing that and making sure that we have everything there in regards to that, and so we're excited."
The expansion will add 22,000 square feet of space to help bring in more students to the vo-tech school.
Edgar says currently students are being turned away from programs due to the lack of space.
"Our programs right now that we have to turn students away big time is welding, we had to turn away about 60 kids, so that will double that and we would only have to turn away 30," Edgar explains. "And on the CNA program on the health side we have to turn away 100 kids, and so that will really help us move things around and do a better job of offering what's best for kids."
School Board Member Ken Reeder says the community support for the project has been a sort of game changer.
Reeder says Altec, Herzog, Gray Manufacturing, R-S Electrical, and Mosaic will provide equipment.
"And we're going to fill up the inside of the building with their equipment, the equipment that's state of the art, they're going to put it in this building," Reeder says. "And then guess what, once the students get trained on that they get to go to those companies and work on the very equipment they've just been trained on that's state of the art."
The St. Joseph School District held a groundbreaking ceremony at Hillyard Thursday morning.