Building a better community

Legislators were excited to tour the newest jewel in Hobbs’ crown on Thursday afternoon, but Mother Nature had other plans for members of the Legislative Education Study Committee, who spent three days in Hobbs hearing about all aspects of education in the southeast and across the state.

Storm clouds gathered with flashes of lightning in the west, as lawmakers heard from the community partners largely responsible for the Career and Technical Education Center of Hobbs (CTECH) — Hobbs Municipal Schools Superintendent TJ Parks, City of Hobbs Mayor Sam Cobb, JF Maddox Foundation Senior Program Officer Mayra Lovas, and Permian Basin Strategic Partnership President and Chief Executive Officer Tracee Bentley — on the partnership with the community and organizations, and why the center is important to the region.

In a change of pace from the usual PowerPoint presentations, the panel addressed legislators with no presentation — only a casual conversation type format with questions from a moderator and from legislators themselves. Chair of the LESC, William Soules, D-Las Cruces, commented later he liked the format better because he felt it gave him a better grasp on what was being presented.

It was noted that each of the represented partners in the CTECH project sitting as panelist have donated about $10 million apiece to the project for the technical and vocational school.

“We love to showcase our community. We’re very proud of what we’ve done here in Hobbs New Mexico,” Cobb told legislators.

Bentley explained what the Permian Strategic Partnership is, so legislators understand how important the PSP partnering with the JF Maddox Foundation, the City of Hobbs, and Hobbs Municipal Schools is.

“We are a coalition of 17 of the larger energy companies here in the Permian Basin that have come together in the first-of-its-kind way, and that is to work together with our communities to make the Permian Basin an even better place to live, work, and raise your family,” she said. “Our focus is on education, healthcare, housing, workforce, and roads.”

A good relationship with community partners is the key to making projects like CTECH work, the panelists said.

“We’ve (HMS) had a very strong relationship with the JF Maddox Foundation for years,” Parks said.

He also noted because the district has been growing so rapidly — to become one of the largest in the state — all bond money was used on replacing schools or building new schools because of that growth, so nothing innovative with an eye to the future could be looked at, until the community coalition developed.

“We got the coalition and collaboration from the capital partners to look forward that allowed us some flexibility to leverage our bond money with PFSA dollars ... it enabled our district to absolutely expand,” he said.

Parks said the goal with CTECH was to make career vocational and technical education as inviting to students and giving it the same treatment as advanced placement within the education system. The dilemma is that teaching and training students in technical education costs more per student. Equipment costs more, the educators cost more, and facilities cost more.

While increasing funding for projects like CTECH is important at the state level and must be done because blue collar jobs are what keeps America moving, increasing spending for everything in education is not necessarily the answer, Parks told the committee.

“Money is not the solving issue for everything we do in public education,” Parks told those in attendance.

At the end of the conversation-style presentation, and questions and answers, Soules announced he had been watching the radar, and TV weather coverage online during the presentation, and a storm with lightning was rolling in. Thus it was not safe for committee members to load onto the bus and make the three block trip to tour the construction site.

In-coming HMS Superintendent Gene Strickland agreed, noting the construction site in its current state is “basically a big lightning rod,” and opted to give a video and slide show presentation of the site, while waiting out the storm.

As raindrops started to fall, it was decided touring the site after a storm was probably not a good idea either, so legislators opted for an early dismissal and dinner.

But, on Friday, legislators did tour another of Hobbs’ crown jewels, the Center of Recreational Excellence (CORE), where they were also treated to breakfast — Hobbs style.

Parks noted, that much like CTECH, the CORE was also a community coalition project.

“That was a coalition of community partners who brought that together,” Parks said.

Blake Ovard may be reached at managingeditor@hobbsnews.com.