SCCC Receives Grant Funding and Donations to Build Grain Elevator on Campus

BY PHILLIP LEE

LIBERAL, Kan. – Seward County Community College continues to develop its grain elevator program thanks to grants and donations.

The college received an Innovative Technology grant from the Kansas Board of Regents as well as support from the Ulysses, Kan.-based Skyland Grain to help in its efforts to build a modified grain elevator on campus grounds.

The grant will be used to purchase grain bins and provide funding for electrical work. Skyland Grain, which is partnering with SCCC in the grain elevator program, is donating equipment and other materials.

The scaled-down grain elevator will provide students firsthand experience working with an actual grain elevator and its operations on site. The project is expected to be completed by the end of the spring semester.

Luke Dowell, SCCC vice president, academic affairs, believes the grain elevator will function as a lab for students and with the specialization of the program.

“The good thing along with the challenge of this program is that the majority of the classes currently exist,” Dowell said. “Where the challenge is that those classes were not geared towards grain elevator operations. This equipment allows several of those courses to integrate labs and hands-on experience that do directly work with that.”

Dowell also praised Skyland Grain for its help and support.

“(Skyland Grain) been instrumental from the very beginning in helping us get the program off the ground,” Dowell said.

The grain elevator program spans across different courses in agriculture and industrial technology. Students who take the program will be versed in several disciplines from welding to electrical theory to crop science to pest control among others and complete it for a certificate in one year.