Three Hills’ Prairie Bible Institute (PBI) may possibly be on the move, and one of the opportunities may be in Drumheller.
Jon Ohlhauser, president of PBI, confirmed with The Mail, they are looking at the Drumheller old hosptial site on Riverside Drive, as well as St. Anthony's School to relocate, as well as other options.
"Right now there is only two communities in the cost benefit, and that's Three Hills and Drumheller," said Ohlhauser.
He made a presentation to the Three Hills Town Council on July 20 explaining the school, which has had a presence in Three Hills since 1922, is investigating the feasibility of relocating. According to the Three Hills Capital, Ohlhauser presented a press release to council.
“Prairie Bible Institute has undertaken a wide analysis of their current operations. All faith based schools in Western Canada have felt the need to assess current operations to maintain relevancy and the highest level of education possible,” states the release. “The current economic situation - as well as market demands - has made it very important for organizations to maintain lean operations as was shown by Taylor University College (Edmonton) being forced to close its doors earlier this year. To do diligence the Prairie Board has undertaken an analysis of Prairie Bible Institute’s operations and part of that analysis has been assessment of the organization’s current assets and operational obligations and processes.”
He goes on to say there are some opportunities that have manifested that are viable options.
“From a position of passivity, Prairie’s leadership (board and administration) has been recently impressed by the convergence of a series of such opportunities that if determined to be sufficiently valuable, desirable, acceptable and God honouring would see us engaging with the possibility of relocating our operations out of Three Hills.”
One of these opportunities according to the PBI’s website is to “utilize a healthcare facility that has potential of providing additional practicum space for health care students which would allow the enrollment in Prairie’s health care programs to show significant growth.”
It goes on to say the school may be able to increase its revenue stream through delivering health care services.
While the PBI release goesgo on to say, “at the same time – and in the same location – a separate educational facility is becoming available for consideration for use by Prairie for all of its non-health care related programs. If it is determined to be ‘workable,’ this facility could substantially reduce PBI’s current annual operational commitment without jeopardizing the delivery of its current educational programming.”
In Drumheller, the new St. Anthony’s School is slated to be complete by the fall of 2010, leaving the former school vacant.
While nothing is near being finalized, the cost benefits are continuing to be investigated. The board has asked administration to present the results of its study and any recommendations at the board’s semi annual meeting in the fall of 2009.