Tuesday was the official groundbreaking ceremony for Barton Community College’s future Agriculture and Transportation Complex, a $3.7 million facility that could be finished by this time next year.

Holding shovels as they stood in front of two massive Case New Holland tractors on the site of the future complex, college trustees, Barton Foundation trustees, and others took turns breaking the ground.

Barton President Dr. Carl Heilman welcomed those who attended the ceremony.

“Thank you for joining us as we move forward, looking at the progress of the college in serving the needs of the county, the businesses and, of course, the students to come,” Heilman said. The groundbreaking was “in celebration of what we hold dear in terms of achievement, success and advancement, not only for the college, but for the public and for the community.”

Instructors for agriculture courses, the Commercial Driver’s License program and Case New Holland courses, as well as Barton’s ag advisory board members and other staff members, also joined the ceremony. Congressman Tracey Mann and Senator Roger Marshall sent representatives.

“This is a really exciting day,” said Mike Johnson, chairman of the board of trustees. “This is a program that actually we’ve been thinking about for a number of years, knowing the potential of what it could do for the area as far as training and new tech.”

Moving indoors, the attendees learned more about the future complex from Lindsey Bogner, executive director of institutional advancement.

Originally called the Agriculture, Farm Machinery and Transportation Technology Complex, “we’ve shortened that since we started, because it was a little bit of a mouthful,” she said. Currently, it is called the Ag Transportation Complex, but it will have a large impact and multiple programs at Barton, she said.

This past year, the college was awarded a little over $1.8 million in a matching one-to-one grant from the state, so the foundation is working on the Grow With Us capital campaign.

KanEquip gets naming rights for classroom

There are tax credits available as well as naming opportunities for major donors.

“We do have two naming opportunities already taken for the building,” she said. The entire ag wing was reserved, although she did not disclose the donor prior to the contract being signed. “We’ll have a name outside from a really generous local family,” she said. “And then, KanEquip has named our Case Top Tech classroom.”

Dr. Vic Martin said the Scale Advisory Board is donating a truck scale that can be used by the CDL classes and will also be used by students who are studying to be scale technicians.