Black River Technical College (BRTC) employees Dean of Business and Technical Education Phillip Dickson and Executive Director of Paragould Operations Priscilla Stillwell interviewed with KAIT 8 news Griffin Demarrais Thursday, March 9 about “The Armory at Piggott.”
DeMarrais opened by saying the clock is ticking for BRTC as they try to open their second satellite campus located in Piggott. Classes will begin in Fall of 2023 featuring classes specifically in welding, robotics automation, distribution and logistics.
Dickson told DeMarrais, “This will open doors for students in Clay County. Piggott was a school district that was not served by a career technical center, it was too far for them to travel to Paragould, and this will offer juniors and seniors the ability to get college training.”
“We are facing some supply chain issues that all industries are right now. We got anywhere from four weeks to eight-week wait times, and we got some things that are taking three to six months to get here,” Dickson said.
DeMarrais added that the project would not be possible without the Department of Education and the Office of Skills Development.
Stillwell told DeMarrais that BRTC will offer something special to the community, “If we have a program set up and we have five or ten students from the public school that are in there and we still have five seats left over, and we can open up those to the public that would like to change their career path or students that graduated that didn’t have this opportunity.”
DeMarrais ended the report by saying despite supply chain issues the opening is on track for classes beginning in August.