The building used to house a company called Berry Equipment Co. They sold and serviced heavy equipment. They closed the facility several years ago and it has just been setting empty. From what I hear, with some effort by our local state senator and congressman, Deere has purchased the building and, working in conjunction with the Ft. Scott Community College (Ft. Scott is about 30 miles north of us but is the closest community/vocational college), will begin training John Deere certified technicians. It should be a great asset for all of the area Deere dealers as I would guess that a lot of the people trained will be from this area and may want to stay in this area so they would have a good flow of trained technicians. Though we have a State University in Pittsburg (where Pittsburg ends, Frontenac starts), Ft. Scott Community College runs several vocational schools in Pittsburg as part of their extension program such as a Cosmetology School and a Computer Science School. I'm hoping this Deere school operates like these as they sometimes offer evening classes in specific areas for the general public. If they should offer something like that for compact tractors, I may have to sign up.
Hoss
