Work to start this month on Sheridan College health science center

Construction is expected to start this month on the new B.F. and Rose H. Perkins Health Science Center at Sheridan College.

Dr. Walt Tribley, president of the Northern Wyoming Community College District, announced the start of the project at the board of trustees meeting this week.

Total cost of the project is just over $12 million, and the state of Wyoming will fund half of that. In addition, the college district has received $1.5 million from an EDA grant, and the remaining funds are from private donors.

The largest single donation for the project was $1.9 million from the Perkins Foundation, which prompted the board of trustees late last year to name the new center in honor of B.F. and Rose H. Perkins. In addition, other private donations have been received from Kim and Mary Kay Love, Whitney Benefits, the William F. & Lorene W. Welch Foundation, Dodd and Dorothy Bryan Foundation and the Herbert G. and Dorothy Zullig Foundation.

The state-of-the-art health science facility is planned to be added to the Sheridan College campus over the next three years to serve the college’s nursing, dental hygiene and health sciences programs.

In addition to the overall name for the facility, trustees late last year also voted to name the dental hygiene clinic in honor of Kim and Mary Kay Love, who donated $700,000, which was the largest private donation to that clinic.

The new Health Science Center will include 23,000 square feet of new construction and a 7,100 square foot renovation of the existing space, which is a wing of the original Whitney Building constructed in 1958.