By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Tarkio Tech has arisen from the ashes of Tarkio College, the liberal arts school that closed in 1992.
Tarkio Tech President John Davis says various people tried various ways to resurrect the college in extreme northwest Missouri, but none of those efforts sought to meet regional needs.
“Our programs are targeted toward our region,” Davis says during a visit to the KFEQ Hotline. “These are areas that we need in order to survive, that St. Joe needs, not just small towns. St. Joe is, for this size town, it has one of the highest manufacturing bases in the country.”
Tarkio Technology Institute got off to a rough start, during the coronavirus pandemic. Only one student graduated that year, but that student got a good job, which Davis says helped. It struggled through the difficult COIVD-plagued 2020. Tarkio Tech graduated 35 students last year and expects to graduate 60-to-80 this year.
College officials received a huge boost when they received word that the estates of Dean and Joanne Curnutt bequeathed Tarkio Tech $1 million, a third of the goal for the school’s Heritage Campaign. The Heritage Campaign seeks to raise enough money to repair and upgrade the 13 buildings still standing on the campus.
“The $3 million capital campaign we have is targeted toward repairing some roofs, getting the dorm open, getting the cafeteria open, because resident space and food are critical if you’re going to have students from a distance and we are getting a lot of students from a distance, especially St. Joe,” Davis says.
A succession of events doomed Tarkio College, founded in 1883 as a private liberal arts college affiliated with the United Presbyterian Church. The 60-acre campus in far northwestern Missouri’s Atchison County once hosted as many as 900 students, some attracted from the East Coast to the school’s theatre program, part of the famed Mule Barn Theatre.
The Mule Barn was an actual mule barn originally, built in 1892 by David Rankin, a prominent businessman and founder of Tarkio College. But the Mule Barn Theatre burned to the ground in early 1989. Tarkio College had lost its second biggest program. Then, the college lost accreditation for its biggest program, teacher education. Enrollment plummeted.
An ill-fated scheme to raise money led to bankruptcy. An official enrolled area residents as students and applied for student loans in their names even though they never attended a class. The deception caught up with Tarkio College, which found itself $25 million in debt. The campus closed in 1992.
Area residents formed the Heartland Educational Institute in an effort to buy back the campus from its creditors. The Tarkio College Alumni Association stepped in and helped the college emerge from bankruptcy.
Davis says Tarkio College made its comeback when backers gave up the idea of reviving a liberal arts college and, instead, applied with the Missouri Department of Higher Education to become a technical, vocational school.
“You know, looking back at it, it probably would have been a better approach from the very beginning and then build on that,” Davis concedes. “We’re not dismissing the possibility that at some point we will have a degree program, an accreditation from a higher learning commission. But, it’s a very lengthy process. It’s a very expensive process.”
Davis says now the school wants to concentrate on steady, sustainable growth.
Tarkio Tech offers courses in welding, wind energy, plumbing, HVAC, health services, computer science, and soon will offer a Christian-based business program.