Sheridan College has received a $4 million dollar donation to help build a new agriculture center on campus.

The donation, announced Friday, is from longtime benefactor Forrest Mars, Jr. of Big Horn. The new center will cost $8 million, and $2.7 million has already been allocated by the state.

College President Paul Young says the 15,000-sqaure foot building will bring a much-needed impact to the school’s agriculture programs.

“Ranching is now as much about science as it is anything else, so we need a soils lab, and agro-ecology lab, and also, something interesting that we’ve been contemplating for some time is a simulated commodities trading room with computerized feeds to the markets both nationally and globally,” Young said.

Young says the center will include classrooms, greenhouses, and a herbarium.

Young says he's confident the remaining $1.3 million can be raised by the end of the summer and construction can begin sometime in the spring.