Gateway's Hughes not leaving for Morehead

Rolls at BGTC on rise for fifth year

Computer training offers farmers a chance to grow into the future

He's funding the future

Gateway's Hughes not leaving for Morehead

Gateway Community and Technical College President Edward Hughes says he's more inspired than ever to move the school forward after taking himself out of the running for the presidency of Morehead State University.

"I am passionate about what we are doing at Gateway and in this community," said Hughes. "We've started some things that are going to be very special and I want to be here to finish what I started."

Hughes, 54, the founding president of Gateway three years ago, said he hopes to remain the school's president until he retires.

"You never say never, but the thought of staying here and retiring here certainly played a part in my decision," he said. "This is a wonderful community and so many exciting things are going to happen in Northern Kentucky in the remainder of my career."

Hughes said Morehead asked him last month to be a presidential candidate and he wound up as one of two finalists for the position. The other, Wayne Andrews, a vice president at East Tennessee State University, was named the school's13th president Thursday afternoon.

The school was searching for a successor to Ronald Eaglin, who is retiring at the end of the year after more than 12 years in the post.

Hughes said he called a consultant to the Morehead presidential search earlier Thursday afternoon and withdrew his name from consideration.

"I knew the Morehead board of regents was deliberating throughout the day, but I hadn't received any indication from the board about what their decision was going to be when I called," Hughes said. "I determined that Gateway was where I wanted to be."

Northern Kentucky community and college leaders were relieved to learn that Hughes is staying at Gateway.

"This decision is really good news for our community," said Gary Toebben, president of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.

"All of us who have worked with Ed are so delighted that he decided to stay and build the best community college in the country. We think Ed has that kind if ability and we believe our community has a hunger for a growing community college."

Northern Kentucky University President James Votruba said he's looking forward to continue working with Hughes. The two have coordinated efforts to make it easy for graduates of Gateway's two-year program to transfer to NKU to get a four-year degree.

"Ed would have made a terrific president at Morehead, but I'm pleased he will remain at Gateway," said Votruba. "He loves Northern Kentucky and his work here. He's already made a tremendous impact on this community."

Rick Jordan, chairman of Gateway's board of directors, said Hughes has done a splendid job of transforming Northern Kentucky Technical College into Gateway.

"Three years ago, very few people had heard about the technical college," said Jordan. "Now, everybody knows about Gateway. Ed has done an excellent job of exposing Gateway to the whole community.

"Ed has been the driving factor behind all of Gateway's success and he has organized the college so that it responds to the needs of our community."

Gateway Vice President Charles Stebbins, who served 13 years as president of Elizabethtown Community College during the time that Hughes was president of Hazard Community College, said he had strongly urged Hughes to move to Gateway three years ago.

"I thought Ed was the best person in the country for the job," said Stebbins. "His strength goes beyond academics. He develops strong relationships with legislators and community decision makers. He believes in a collaborative approach to leadership and he's able to get things done that way."

Hughes said going through the Morehead candidacy process had an intriguing effect on him, making him think about Gateway more deeply than ever.

"After answering questions of others at another institution, I began thinking about how I would answer those questions at Gateway," he said.

"It really sharpened the way I think about how Gateway needs to move forward and how it needs to engage the community. It rekindled in me the belief that our strategic plan of being inclusive in the community is absolutely the right way to go."

Hughes said he also was influenced to stay at Gateway by the support he received from colleagues during the past month after it was announced that he was a candidate for the Morehead post.

"The community has been amazing in its encouragement and support," he said. "You don't get that very often in your life and when you do get it, you ought not to fool with it."

Toebben said he felt that Hughes might have been ultimately influenced to remain at Gateway by the reception he received from community and education leaders at an awards dinner Wednesday night.

"We all told Ed how much we wanted him to stay," said Toebben, who noted that the remarks of retiring state Rep. Jim Callahan, D-Wilder, were especially poignant.

"Jim was given an award, but he spent virtually all his time talking about what a huge loss for Northern Kentucky it would be if we lost Ed," said Toebben.

Hughes said he has no regrets about ending his Morehead candidacy before he knew his fate there.

"I knew somewhere down this path that the right decision would be made," he said. " I am 1,000 percent content with the decision I made.

"This is where my heart and passion is. I'm an unabashed community and technical college person. I'm also somebody who believes in starting something and finishing it. I am fully committed to staying here as long as I can be helpful."

Hughes said he believes Morehead's interest in him was really a tribute to Gateway.

"It's an indication that what we've been doing here is the right way," he said. "I'm convinced we have the right vision and right plan to move Gateway ahead.

"We're going to be unrelenting and we're going to get there."

Rolls at BGTC on rise for fifth year
Technical college’s numbers point to increasingly competitive job market

Bowling Green Technical College is logging a record enrollment figure for the fifth straight year, as its student population has grown to exceed 2,500 students.

That’s a 3 percent growth from last year and approximately 130 percent growth over the past five years, according to Chief Academic Officer Iris Dotson.

“I think it’s probably a combination of things,” she said. “More and more jobs are requiring technical skills. The days are gone when someone can get out of high school and go into a well-paying job without technical skills, and I think people are realizing that.”

As with most community colleges, BGTC enrolls a wide variety of students – some fresh out of high school, some who are going back for additional degrees and some who are going for their first degrees later in life. But there’s been a marked increase in students fresh out of high school, meaning BGTC is their first choice for higher education.

“We’ve done a better job of marketing BGTC as an option for education,” Dotson said. “We’ve also grown in the area of traditional students. There’s a growing awareness in this community of the educational opportunities out there.”

The steady enrollment growth is a leading component in the technical college’s 2004-09 strategic plan, which outlines the need for enhancing the image of the college, and ensuring academic success and excellence in student services. That involves establishing an orientation program for new students, streamlining the registration and financial aid processes, and implementing diversity recruitment strategies.

“The faculty take a great deal of responsibility for recruiting their own students,” she said. “They go to career fairs to recommend their programs and visit businesses and encourage employees to continue their education. A great deal of students come to us through faculty recruitment and word of mouth.”

A challenge that accompanies enrollment growth is increased costs, which is made more difficult by four budget cuts that BGTC has been dealt in the past three years. But planning ahead has kept the college from being hit too hard, said Wendell Honeycutt, chief business affairs officer.

“We’ve looked at the programs and services we’re offering and eliminated a few services that were not in demand,” he said. “They were nice to have, but they weren’t being utilized.”

So far, BGTC has been able to keep all its employees; even though it’s gotten rid of some services, the employees have been reassigned to other areas.

“Some professors accepted reassignments from lower-demand to higher-demand areas,” Honeycutt said. “We’ve kept all the central services going. We’ve been fortunate in planning for several years, and that’s what’s helped us out.”

And even though Honeycutt anticipates another budget cut this year, he thinks BGTC will be all right.

“As the economy picks up again, we should be at the end of the budget cuts,” he said. “But we keep a reserve and we’ll build it back up as we can.”

On the horizon for BGTC is a possible new campus in Simpson County, though Dotson said that is in the discussion phase and is not definite. The college already has four campuses – two in Bowling Green and two in Glasgow – and another training center will be built at the Kentucky Trimodal Transpark.

Kentucky New Era
November 18, 2004

Computer training offers farmers a chance to grow into the future

HOPKINSVILLE -- Until a week ago, 72-year-old Lois Brown had never turned on a computer. Tuesday night, she was surfing the Web.

Not only has Brown gained computer skills through a class offered to local farmers, but she's learned to type, too. The Crofton woman now owns a computer that she couldn't afford on her own.

Participants in "Computers for Farm Use" program received free refurbished computers and 12 hours of computer training through a grant at Hopkinsville Community College.

Computer instruction covered the fundamentals of using a computer, including introductions to the Windows operating system, the Internet and e-mail. They also learned about bookkeeping systems and received textbooks for the class.

"Things are changing. Farmers recognize the need to know computer technology," said Carol Kirves, continuing education and community services coordinator for HCC.

"This whole project started when a big need was seen to educate farmers in this area."

She said for some it was their first computer and training. For others, it added another computer and more farm-based computer skills to expand operations.

Brown plans to use the information she learned to check prices and information online, and to e-mail relatives who live outside of Kentucky.

Jeff Kincaid, a self-described "hobby farmer" with about 100 acres near Hopkinsville, said he will use the computer for finances.

"I'm really tickled to get the opportunity to do this," said Capitola Charles, who lives on a farm with her husband in north Christian County.

Charles said the class has taught her everything from how to hook up a computer to Internet tips and how to create a spreadsheet online.

The workshop was offered at HCC through a partnership between the Commodity Growers Cooperative and an $18,070 Workforce Alliance Grant. The Kentucky Community and Technical College System and McConnell Technology and Training Center provided the computers.

Twenty people registered for classes this month and another 20 are registered for classes next month. A waiting list for the workshops contains more than 50 names. Kirves has requested additional funding for future workshops.

Evansville Courier and Press
November 22, 2004

He's funding the future
Philanthropist supports education with donations to college, high schools

MADISONVILLE, Ky. - As it turns out, Brown Badgett - one of Kentucky's most well-known philanthropists - is also a pretty good fisherman.

But one time, Tubby Smith outdid him.

Smith, the head men's basketball coach for the University of Kentucky, and retired UK head coach Joe B. Hall were joking during a ceremony earlier this month honoring Badgett, a Hopkins County contractor and coal operator, about Smith's "mistake" of catching a bigger fish than Badgett while on a South American trip with him.

"I couldn't help it!" Smith said in his defense.

But Hall quipped that Smith's real mistake was telling it to the hundreds in the Madisonville Community College's fine arts center who turned out to recognize Badgett's $1.2 million gift to the school.

Badgett couldn't have been too upset, though. He keeps a photograph among other fishing memorabilia in his Madisonville office showing himself, Smith and the coaching staff dwarfed by the head coach's 524-pound blue marlin. The fishing trophies and pictures and personal friendships with the coaches illustrate a special relationship Badgett has had with UK basketball since the 1950s. But for all his involvement with basketball, Badgett also has become known as one of the state's biggest philanthropists. In addition to supporting Madisonville Community College, he has given $2.6 million for construction of athletic complexes at the county's two high schools, $400,000 to the local YMCA, camp construction funding for the Boy Scouts, individual college scholarships for Hopkins County students and with his brother, Rogers, underwriting support for the Badgett Regional Center for Educational Enhancement. "The youth of today are going to be running this country in the next 20 to 30 years, and they need to be educated," Badgett said.

Badgett, an 81-year-old Memphis, Tenn., native, never attended college. Instead, he said, he received his education during World War II as a ground crewman in the Army Air Corps. After leaving the Army in 1946, Badgett moved to Madisonville.

Badgett followed his father and two older brothers, Rogers and Russell, to Hopkins County and helped them introduce dragline know-how to coal surface mining. Badgett married a local girl - Helen "Heidi" Venters, Miss Hopkins County 1946 - and has "basically been here ever since."

Badgett's relationship with UK basketball began with Madisonville High School standout Frank Ramsey. Badgett began attending UK games when Ramsey, who later played professionally with the Boston Celtics, was at Lexington from 1950-54.

There, Badgett met the Wildcats' legendary Coach Adolph Rupp, a native of Halstead, Kan., which wasn't far from Wichita, where Badgett was doing canal work. Badgett's company gave summer employment to UK players, and one thing led to another. Eventually, he made his private plane available to UK coaches when they needed to travel to scout players. Friendships developed, and the fishing trips all over the world were a facet of that.

"He's the most generous individual I have ever known," said Madisonville accountant Larry Wilson, a longtime friend. "His generosity extends to just more than education for our young people. It extends to his friends, and when you're a friend of Mr. Badgett's you're a friend for life."

Madisonville attorney and former Hopkins Judge-Executive Richard Frymire has assisted with fund-raising drives for the college, and he values Badgett's support. "It's extremely significant that there are key people in the community who will step up and by example lead the way to promote education in the community, because it's contagious," Frymire said. "The community college, I truly believe is one of the jewels in our crown. It's a tremendous asset in this community, and I think Brown Badgett recognizes the opportunity it can provide for education." For Badgett's contributions to the college - the $1.2 million gift to be paid from a life insurance trust at his and his wife's deaths - his name will be placed on the school's yet-to-be-built Energy and Advanced Technology Center. He suggests students in 30 or 40 years will ask, "Who the heck was that?"

It's "self-satisfying," Badgett acknowledged, "thinking I'm doing my share in the community - as much as I'm capable of doing." It's also gratifying, he said, to have students tell him the scholarships he sponsors helped them get through college.

In Western Kentucky, the Badgett name is associated mostly with strip mining operations in Hopkins, Webster and Muhlenberg counties.

The old West Kentucky Coal Co. was among companies operating in Hopkins County when Badgett arrived there in the mid-1940s. "I used to shove West Kentucky Coal in our furnace (in Memphis), and I didn't dream I'd be a close friend of the company president one day," Badgett said.

The three Badgett brothers started business together but "very amicably split in 1960," he said. All three were successful as individual operators. They are retired now, he said, and "great friends."

With a complex of individual office buildings on Madisonville's North Main Street, they meet for lunch each day they are in town. Brown Badgett sold his mining company in 1978 and concentrated on road building after that. The contracting had helped to smooth the boom-and-bust cycles of the coal mining industry. But to this day, Badgett believes that, "The coal business has to come back."

Noting the depletion of domestic oil and gas reserves and a 1,000-year reserve of coal, he says it will approach the importance it held in the region's economy in the 1970s. "The only logical thing to do is bring coal to fill up the gap," he said, adding that strip coal in Western Kentucky is "basically gone," and future mines will be underground operations.