LEWISTON, Idaho – The Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation has awarded a $100,000 grant to Lewis-Clark State College designated to building the college’s new Career & Technical Education Center in the Lewiston Orchards, LCSC officials have announced. This is in addition to the Foundation’s annual scholarship support of $75,000 to LCSC students.
“Lewis-Clark State College is very appreciative of the generosity of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation,” Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs Lori Stinson said. “It is gratifying that the Foundation recognizes and embraces our focus on providing cutting edge career and technical education opportunities to the region.”
For more than 50 years, the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation has been dedicated to continuing the Moore and Bettis families’ legacy of “advancing the great State of Idaho,” according to the foundation’s website. Laura Moore was born in 1869 and raised in Boise. Her father, C.W. Moore, was the co-founder and president of Idaho First National Bank and the family was heavily involved in the Boise community. She married J.W. Cunningham. She donated time and money to several causes, including the Red Cross, and served on the board of the Children’s Home Society of Idaho for more than 30 years. The Bettis family represents the third generation of the Moore family to volunteer their service to the Foundation.
When she passed away in 1963, her will established the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, which supports scholarships to Idaho higher education institutions and grants that benefit the state. Currently the foundation provides over 450 scholarships to students attending two-year and four-year institutions in Idaho, along with a separate competitive grant process open to nonprofits across Idaho.
In 2017, the Idaho Legislature approved funding for LCSC to building a $20 million CTE facility, but stipulated that LCSC must raise half of that on its own before the $10 million in state funding can be used. LCSC officials are looking to start construction of the facility within the next academic year. The new facility is scheduled to open in time for the fall semester of 2020.
The new 75,000-square-foot facility is expected to house seven of LCSC’s 10 Technical & Industrial programs that are currently on the Lewiston campus. Those programs are auto mechanics technology; CNC machining technology; heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR) technology; engineering technology; industrial electronics technology; information technology; and industrial maintenance-millwright technology (one year with HVACR). The new facility will provide approximately 20,000 more square-feet of space for these programs than the current facility. During the last five years, LCSC has had five T&I programs that were at or near capacity for students. The expansion will allow for more students to enter these programs, thus providing LCSC’s industry partners with more qualified students.
The new building also provides opportunity for expansion of the CTE programs that will stay on campus – collision repair technology, diesel technology, welding technology, and industrial maintenance-millwright technology (one year with welding).
LCSC’s new facility will be located just north of the new Lewiston High School’s CTE facility which will help facilitate the transition of high school students who enroll in Lewis-Clark State’s CTE programs and greater collaboration between the two institutions.