It’s time for school – well at least at Jefferson State Community College. The school began holding classes in Clanton yesterday at the old McKinnon Toyota building. While this may not be the ideal place to hold classes, it is a place for the school to start, and it is only temporary until the building is completed in October.

This is great news for everyone across the county. Not only is this a great place for traditional college students to come and earn their associate’s degree, but it is also a place where working adults can go to college.

The school schedules classes in such a way so that people working full-time jobs can also come to school. Jeff State offers night classes and weekend classes to help those folks further their education and possibly help them get the career they want. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you graduated high school; you can still go to college.

Across the state, thousands of working adults make the commitment each year to pursue a degree. They are usually some of the best students because they are focused and driven on what they want to do.

It is great that we have a place like Jefferson State. And it will only get better.

The educational building is almost complete. All that is left is to get the rooms and laboratories equipped for classes.

Once that building is complete, the project isn’t over yet. The much-anticipated civic center will then be constructed and will include a facility to hold events with more than one thousand people.

When the announcement was made about Jeff State in March 2007, it created an excitement the area has never seen before. Now that classes have already begun, that excitement is only going to grow.

It’s hard to believe it’s only been just a year since they broke ground on the building. Now they are getting ready to move the classes to the building. That’s truly amazing.

On behalf of everyone in the county, thank you Jeff State for coming. This facility should help transform our county.