Check out Dodge City.
A new $12 million waterpark. A shiny new craft brewery — not far from the new whiskey distillery. And, yes, that trendy new downtown cafe.
A nearly $6 million addition to Boot Hill Museum just kicked off last fall. That’s about when Dodge City wrapped up $86 million in renovations and expansions to its schools.
Much of rural Kansas is withering. Not Dodge City. It offers a growing anchor in the state’s southwest, grounded in the meat industry and energized by the thousands of people who work at its slaughterhouses.
But the town’s success story risks hitting a 21st-century ceiling. It lacks a four-year college.
That complicates upward mobility for blue-collar workers, costs the town services it sorely needs and hinders efforts to diversify the local economy.
Some residents leave the region to chase the schooling that leads to higher-paying jobs. Others can’t afford to. Meanwhile, plenty of middle-class jobs in the region go unfilled, such as teaching positions and better-paying health care work.
That’s why community leaders dream of bringing four-year college to this icon of the Old West.
“It’s the only way,” said Joann Knight, head of economic development, “to really address our health care issues and the lack of education out here.”
(Read more: Local – The Hutchinson News)