CANON CITY -- Pueblo Community College gave community members, its many supporters and other curious individuals their first look at the newly opened Fremont Campus during official dedication ceremonies Friday, thanking all of them for making the long-time dream become reality.

“This beautiful campus is the direct result of the tremendous support that this community has given this project for so many years,” said Dr. Mike Davis, President of PCC.

The new 33,000-square-foot, $9.2 million campus, which opened to students on Aug. 27 for the start of the fall semester, is located on a 55-acre plot of land sometimes referred to as the “Prisons Gardens” on the west edge of Canon City. While it was more than ten years in the planning, those who led the effort to get it funded and constructed said it was well worth the wait.

“This definitely is one of the most beautiful campuses in the state,” said Dr. Mary Griffith, who has been PCC’s Vice President for the Fremont Campus since July 1999.

The new campus building is technologically advanced to provide a high-quality education to students from Fremont, Custer and Chaffee counties for years to come. While it has traditional classrooms and administrative offices, the campus also contains computer labs for individualized learning opportunities, a modern science lab, and interactive classrooms that can be linked to remote sites.

“This is a state-of-the-art facility that will enable the educational needs of students from this community and this region to be met both now and well into the future,” said Dr. Joe May, now the President of the Community Colleges of Colorado system after being the driving force in getting the project funded while he was president of PCC.

Importantly, the new center will be able to meet the FCC’s growing enrollment. While it had approximately 255 students in the 1993-94 academic year, it now serves close to 700 students while offering both certificate and associate degree programs.

The backing received from the community and area legislators was vital in making the Fremont Campus a reality.

The community has been unwavering in its support. It initially launched a $1 million fund-raising drive in December 1996 to provide project seed money, and community members made several trips to Denver, first to convince the Colorado Commission on Higher Education to approve the project and then to help get it spared from the state’s list of proposed capital construction reductions in 1999.

Area legislators, meanwhile, were instrumental in getting the project funded during tight economic times in which capital construction dollars were hard to acquire. Particularly loyal backers were Sen. Ken Chlouber of Leadville, Rep. Lola Spradley of Beulah, Rep. Rep. Joyce Lawrence, who chair the Capital Development Committee, and Sen. Ken Arnold, former chair of that committee. Also, Gil Romero, a legislative lobbyist, repeatedly went to bat for the project when he was a member of the state’s powerful Joint Budget Committee.

PCC first opened a branch campus in Canon City in 1980 and over the years has operated in a number of different locations in the city. It was renamed the Fremont County Center in 1993 and later the Fremont Campus, and it has operated out of leased facilities at the Holy Cross Abbey since 1984.

In 1993, the Colorado Legislature approved the transfer of land from the Colorado Department of Corrections to PCC, and the transfer agreement was signed in 1995. In 1998, PCC received start-up funding for the project, and the groundbreaking for the new campus took place on March 11, 2000.