For the last 80 years, Eastern Wyoming College’s satellite campus in Douglas was located in a former elementary school. President Tom Armstrong of Eastern Wyoming College in Torrington says it served proudly, but has worn out. He says the effort to secure funding for a new 30,000 square-foot building was five years in the making. And with voter approval of a temporary one-cent tax to fund construction this November, he says the College will soon be able to serve many more students.
“We currently serve about 185 full and part time students, we look for that current number of full and part time students in our facilities to double in the next couple of years,” says Armstrong.
In addition to the new 9.7 million dollar building in Douglas Business Park, voters also supported an expansion of the Converse County Libraries, which will extend the eighteen-month penny tax for an additional four-and-a-half years. Eastern Wyoming College President Tom Armstrong says he thinks most people understood the extra tax was valuable and temporary.
That one cent goes to the library, it goes to the college, and because there are two it would run just a little bit longer. But it is sunsetted and I think most of the voters understood that,” says Armstrong, “Once those are paid for, that special use tax disappears."
The target for completion of the new building is fall of 2014.