A chance to visit area’s best kept secret

**The entrance to the drive up to the Denison Job Corps Center.**

The Denison Job Corps Center, located at 10 Opportunity Drive just east of Denison on Highway 30, has planned a big day for area schools and area residents next Thursday, April 25.

From 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., tours of the campus and the programs offered will be conducted every 30 minutes.

The Denison Job Corps campus is a tuition-free education and career training program for young adults ages 16-24. People who take the tour will be able to see the campus facilities, dorm-life housing, career training programs and recreation activities.

Paul E. Williams, Denison Job Corps Center campus director, said that nationally, comments about Job Corps are that people have heard about it but are not sure what it is.

“We may be considered the biggest secret out there, and we don’t want to be a secret,” he said.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Job Corps on the national level. It was started in 1964 under President Lyndon Johnson’s Administration to benefit disadvantaged youth, Williams explained.

“We’re celebrating our ability to help those that are disadvantaged to get into sustainable career paths,” he said. “If somebody from the community is curious about what's up here on the hill or curious about what we do here, this (the tours on April 25) is the perfect time to stop by and see it for themselves.

“Our students are truly dedicated, and the more that the community can see what they do, the more they can help benefit the community by hiring these young professionals for jobs,” Williams continued. “We want to be a pipeline for the entire region, and anybody, any business owner, for example, that is interested in sustainable employees and having a pipeline of new employees, I would certainly encourage them to visit the Denison Job Corps Center.”

Williams said that students from 27 schools from around the region will be visiting the Denison Job Corps Center on April 25, giving them the opportunity to see first-hand what the school is all about.

“We’re going to show off every trade we offer and show off our gorgeous campus and our facilities, and we’re going to show off what our instructors do for the young professionals that we have here,” he said.

Career paths offered at Denison Job Corps are the brick and tile trade, electrical, HVAC, carpentry, certified nurse aid (CNA), clinical medical assistant (CMA), pharmacy tech and licensed practical nurse (LPN).

Like many programs, Job Corps was greatly affected by COVID, and the Denison Job Corps Center is continually adding to the numbers of young professionals it trains. The center’s capacity is for 282 students; 160 students are currently at the center, and that number is growing every week, said Williams.

Another area that the Denison Job Corps is attempting to put back to pre-COVID status is community involvement, and on that front the center has a big announcement. The Denison Job Corps Center now has a memorandum of understanding approved to send students to the City of Denison for worked-based learning assignments.

“They will be able to work with all parts of the city, whether it’s with the Parks & Rec Department, maintenance or clerical,” said Williams. “We’re excited to send our young professionals out into the community so they can show off the skills that they’ve learned and develop some more skills while they’re out there doing work-based learning.”

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Denison Job Corps students working on city projects is something that was frequently seen pre-COVID and Williams said with the work-based learning assignments, people will see more of that.

He added that the Denison Job Corps Center also has a memorandum of understanding with Crawford County Memorial Hospital.

“We’re sending our pharmacy techs and our nurse aids there,” he explained. “We’re trying as much as we possibly can to be an active part of the Denison community and to help the community thrive. We believe the more we can get our young professionals out there, the more they’re going to thrive, so it’s a win-win situation.”

Members of the public who go to the Denison Job Corps Center for a tour should be aware of the security measures that are in place. Once they drive up to the curve at the top of the hill, they will stop at a guard shack and be greeted by one of the campus’s security personnel. Security personnel will direct the driver to pull right behind the welcome center and one of the security personnel will search the vehicle. People will be escorted into the welcome center to walk through a metal detector.

“We do that because we are a federal facility and we take the safety of our young professionals very, very seriously,” Williams explained. “We want to keep them safe, and in a lot of cases they are minors, 16- and 17-year-olds whose parents have trusted us with the safety of their child.”

Also on campus on April 25 will be the newly created Denny the Denison Panther mascot.

Williams explained one of the things he wanted to do when he became the center director in December was to create a sense of pride in the school.

“We bought a panther costume to be our mascot and had a naming contest. Our students all kicked in ideas for names, and we conducted a vote, and it came down to Denny the Denison Panther,” he said. “Our students rotate who gets to be the mascot on any given occasion.”

“I think it's important for the community to see the center. We can talk all day about how beautiful this campus is and what a great job our instructors are doing with the young professionals but to see it for yourself is a whole different dynamic,” Williams added. “People can walk into our brick and tile shop, for example, and see the young professionals creating something beautiful with their craft and see how excited the young people are to show off what they've learned. They’ll immediately explain to you exactly what they're doing, how they're doing it and why they're doing it, and that's just a testament to who are young professionals are and who they want to be once they graduate and get out into the workforce.”

Flyers about the open house are posted in the community. The flyer has a QR code to register for a tour. If someone doesn’t have a QR code, they can call Christin DeVine at 712-263-4192 extension 1312306 to be put on a list to take a tour.

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