“This is for everybody in Oconee County” — Dr. Booth

At one end of a newly-paved road inside an Oconee industrial park there is now a full-fledged campus of Tri-County Technical College. The location is the county Information and Technology Park on highway 11. Monday is the first day for classes, and between 150 and 175 students are expected. A ceremony to officially open the building was a celebration of a project whose earliest roots go back about 25 years ago when John Powell and John Hostetler and others talked about the need for college classes in the county. Powell, chairman of the TEC Commission, said it finally came together thanks to a partnership among the county school district and the county and state governments, along with donations from leading employers from the private sector. Dr. Ronnie Booth, Tech president, gave credit to Oconee’s state lawmakers for assuring that the last amount of funding, believed to be $3 million, was provided over a governor’s veto. The partnership includes a commitment by the Oconee School District to build a new career and technology center in the park. Both Booth and Dr. Michael Thorsland, district superintendent of education, look forward to that project because a second educational building there holds the promise that high schoolers can walk a few feet to take college courses and possibly a few more feet to work in the Baxter Manufacturing complex in the park.