Building

When I started my extension career, Butler county was housed in tiny 500 square ft. cinder block construction office.  We built a 2400 sq. ft. building, in 2001 we remodeled, and expanded to 4,000 square ft. Good extension work built support, and the need for more space.

After nearly 15 years of planning, purchasing 8 acres of land, many meetings with CEC EDB and other councils and groups we were a week away from putting out bid packages for a free standing 8,000 square ft. building.  We saw the old Pamida building had been re-listed on the MLRS listings.

We contacted the realtor, examined the building, and took the issue to the EDB.  The board voted to buy the building and remodel based on the estimates we had put together.  Many more meetings saw the plan refined and improved.  The process of taking everything though our leadership is time consuming, but the ideas they had helped make this new facility a real asset to the extension service and our community.  Those meetings with 4-H Council, Rural Development Clubs, Stockmans association, CEC, and EDB made this project successful.  

Management from the agents kept the project on and in fact under budget.  We only got a building permit on the portion of the building that we made into offices.  But we repaired lighting, emergency lighting, exit signs, fire alarms, replaced lighting with LED’s, replaced 1500 ceiling tiles, patched drywall, removed CVT tile etc. from the entire building. The volunteer labor saved tens of thousands of dollars.  

This building is used by hundreds of people every week. Because we rent the building to the HS and MS archery teams, we have even recruited some more 4-Hers and gotten others to shoot Trap and rifles with 4-H.  We are installing a giant mural, which will depict most events in Butler co. but will also become an event in Butler co. history.

The building includes archery range, rifle range, 4,500 square ft. of storage, 17,000 square ft. activity area, 4 separate meeting rooms, kitchen, and offices, totaling 10,000 square ft.  The entire facility is 32,700 square ft. Additionally we have 1.9 acres of parking. Seamless wireless internet has been installed. The building looks good, and well represents UK.  This facility meets our needs and was accomplished on a relatively small budget $1.45 million.

The agents provided management, dozens of leaders provided the leadership, more than 200 volunteers attended public meetings to help have input on the planning.  It all came out great.