Texarkana College will hold the grand opening of Workforce Building on Tuesday

Texarkana College will hold the dedication for the new Betty and Buddy Ledwell Workforce Training Center at 11 a.m. Tuesday on the school campus, 2500 N. Robison Road.

The building will house classrooms and equipment for programs, including industrial and construction maintenance. TC President James Henry Russell said the department expansion will directly address the need regional industry has expressed for a trained workforce.

“These are two programs that lead to great jobs right here in this community,” he said. “The industrial maintenance is a fairly new program that we started that we have seen an increased amount of success with and realized we need more room for the advanced equipment everyone will see at the grand opening that addresses the demand from industry in our area for these skilled workers.”

The building will also house the construction maintenance department, which was formerly in a building on the Texas High campus.

“On the construction side, there’s not a contractor in the area that you can talk to that will not talk about the desperate need for skilled workers, and we are happy to have this program on the campus and it’s poised to grow,” he said.

The 20,000 square-foot building is named named after a wellknown local family business established in 1946, which has flourished and has a strong presence in the community. The company specializes in custom-manufactured bodies, trucks, trailers and parts.

“Having the Ledwell name on the facility just sets the high expectations we have for the work ethic of our students and we wanted to set the tone of what we expect out of our students and how they are to perform because of the Ledwell reputation of hard work, ethics and honor in this community,” Russell said. He added that the building will cost approximately $1 million to build and the cost was kept low because the college did the majority of the work in-house.

“This is a big deal for Texarkana College,” he said. “I really want to compliment Ricky Boyette and the facilities crew for handling a great deal of this project in-house, for doing it excellently and efficiently at a low cost per square foot.”

Lunch will be served following the program, and a building tour will be given.

Staff photo by Hunt Mercier ■ The newest building on Texarkana College’s campus, the Betty and Buddy Ledwell Workforce Training Center, stands in Texarkana, Texas. The building was built with the focus on workforce students to help them continue their education in a specified area of work.