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Published Sunday, December 20, 2009 in Local

Foundation raising money for Coweta college campus

By Winston Skinner

The Newnan Times-Herald

A $5,000 donation from a bank is what supporters of a standalone Coweta technical school campus hope will be the first of many.

West Georgia Technical College is planning to build a campus on Turkey Creek Road near Interstate 85. The school and its predecessor, West Central Technical College, have offered classes at Central Educational Center for several years.

The West Central Technical College Foundation has received $5,000 from CoBank on behalf of Gary A. Miller, a member of the cooperative bank's board. Miller is also president and chief executive officer of GreyStone Power Corporation, an electric membership cooperative in Douglasville, and chairman of the West Central Technical College Foundation's major gifts campaign.

West Central Technical College, which has its headquarters in Waco, and West Georgia Technical College, which was headquartered in LaGrange, merged earlier this year.

The new school, West Georgia Technical College, serves the counties of Coweta, Carroll, Douglas, Haralson, Heard, Meriwether and Troup. The school provides a wide range of certificate, diploma and degree offerings as well as community support services and training courses that support local industry.

The gift from CoBank will go toward the institution's major gifts campaign, which is raising money for the new campus in Coweta County, as well as an expansion of health care initiatives, adult literacy and student scholarships for WGTC.

"We certainly appreciate this generous gift from CoBank to our fundraising campaign," said Dawn Cook, WGTC's vice president for institutional advancement. "The foundation's fundraising efforts are vitally important as we continue to support the people, businesses and communities it serves."

"I'm incredibly proud that the bank is underwriting the West Central Technical College Foundation," Miller said. "The education and training opportunities it supports through its fundraising truly have a direct impact on the economic health of our region."

The technical school's foundation received the gift as part of CoBank's corporate giving program, which allows employees and board members to direct bank donations to their choice of non-profit organizations and programs. Through the program, CoBank donated more than $1 million last year to benefit local communities where its employees and directors live and work.

CoBank, which has a regional office in Atlanta, is a $60 billion cooperative bank serving vital industries across rural America. The bank provides loans, leases, export financing and other financial services to agribusinesses and rural power, water and communications providers in all 50 states.

The bank -- which has its main headquarters outside Denver, Colo. -- is a member of the Farm Credit System, a nationwide network of banks and retail lending associations chartered to support the borrowing needs of U.S. agriculture and the nation's rural economy.

At a recent luncheon meeting sponsored by Certified Literate Is Coweta's Key, Dr. Skip Sullivan, WGTC president, said plans are moving forward for two buildings on the 38-acre tract. Sullivan said the Georgia legislature and the technical school's foundation both have committed funds to construct buildings on the new campus.

The campus will feature "a full service, community library," Sullivan said. Sullivan, Cook and other WGTC administrators and staff have been working to secure more funding for the campus.

A meeting was held last month with members of the Coweta County Hospital Authority. At that meeting, Mark Brown, chairman of the authority, said the hospital authority is probably "interested in participating in some form or fashion."

A report earlier this year from the Governor's Office of Student Achievement showed a significant number of students from Coweta and nearby counties pick WGTC for study after high school. The GOSA study tracks how many of Georgia's public high school graduates go to college and where they enroll.

"The study is the first of its kind and presents details on students' out-of-state and private college enrollment that cannot currently be found anywhere else," said Mallie McCord of GOSA.

"For the first time, we know not only how many students went to a technical college or university system institution in Georgia, but we also know how many students went to schools like Auburn, Emory, Notre Dame and Benedict College," observed Kathleen Mathers, GOSA executive director.

Ben Chambers, marketing specialist with WGTC, said the GOSA report showed West Georgia Tech as the number one choice of high school graduates from the school systems in Haralson, Heard, Meriwether and Troup counties. WGTC was ranked second for Coweta County School System graduates as well as those from the Bremen and Carrollton city systems and the county schools of Carroll and Douglas.

Chambers noted WGTC ranked fifth for Paulding County graduates, "even though Paulding is not a part of WGTC's service area."

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