March 3, 2007

OAKWOOD, Va. — For more than 60 years, thousands of Buchanan County’s brightest and most talented students earned their high school diplomas at the old Garden High School.

Now, a new generation of students will soon celebrate their first charter class graduation at Virginia’s first and only three year accelerated pharmacy degree program at the University of Appalachia College of Pharmacy.

For Frank Kilgore, founder and former chairman of the board, the transformation of the old Garden High School into a stunning new pharmaceutical college was a dream three years in the making.

“We organized and came up with the idea in the spring of 2004, and we incorporated in the summer of 2004,” Kilgore said. “Then in August of 2004, we had our grand opening. It moved really fast. We thought it would take several years to get to that process, but we expedited the process.”

For Kilgore, the fulfillment of the dream — and the opening of the Slate Creek and ultimately the newly renovated Garden campus — also led to many sleepless nights.

“I was panicked so much about our deadline, and everything we needed to do” Kilgore said. “So I got up every morning at 3 a.m., and started working on it. Now that I’ve served my three years as chairman and founder, and have turned those duties over to Dr. (Eleanor Sue) Cantrell and (Michael G.) “Mickey” McGlothlin, I can sleep. It was a passion, and it became an obsession to get it up and going and stabilized.”
On Saturday, Feb. 24, the torch to the old Garden High School was officially passed on to a new generation of students with the official grand opening celebration of the newly renovated Garden campus. The event was keynoted by former Garden High graduate Elizabeth A. McClanahan, a judge with the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

In the near future, the Slate Creek campus will be consolidated with the Garden campus, which will be expanded, according to Cantrell, president of the pharmacy college. Cantrell said the UACP currently has 128 first and second year pharmacy students enrolled. The college will welcome another 65 in August. More than 1,000 students have applied for the college. The first charter class will graduate in the spring of 2008.
“We have 128 right now, and another 65 coming in August,” Cantrell said. “That will be when the next class starts. Based upon what we’ve received in hand, it seems like we will have over 900 applications. So we are knocking on the door of a 1,000. We have a real good mix of applications. Of course, our focus of the school in addition to providing an excellent pharmaceutical education and some scholarships is to address some of the health needs of central Appalachia. That is a part of our mission statement, so we certainly seek out and are glad to receive qualified applications from central Appalachia.”

Kilgore said the pharmacy college can currently accept only 65 students per year.

“We are capped at 65,” Kilgore said. “Last year we had 1,300 applications. We can only accept 65 per year until we get permission to increase the cap.”

Kilgore said the overwhelming success of the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy helped to lay the foundation for the pharmacy college. For a local economy once reliant upon coal, an educational renaissance is now underway.

“When I started working for them (the Buchanan County Board of Supervisors) in 1993 on some environmental issues — they liked my work and asked me if there was some ways I could find businesses to come into Buchanan County that weren’t based on coal, gas or timber,” Kilgore said. “They saw what had happened to the other businesses. They were wanting something that had the potential for sustainability and growth without the environmental impact. At that time, I was on the steering committee for the Appalachian School of Law’s ability to get established in Norton. When Wise County couldn’t get it established, I mentioned it to the Board of Supervisors — and they said they wanted this. In seven weeks, they had raised $5 million, got the school board to donate those two schools in downtown Grundy to the law school, and we had commitments from private donors of $7 million.”

The community has overwhelmingly welcomed the UACP, Cantrell said.

“We’ve had a great response from the community,” she said. “The community has really welcomed the students and faculty. I think the leaders of the county and the community are really to be commended for their vision. I think it was a bold step for them to take.”

Cantrell said there is a growing need for pharmacists across the country.

“I believe it is a strong program, and I believe the school has a bright future,” she said. “There is a tremendous need for pharmacists in our country. This will help.”

Kilgore said many long-time staff members are to be commended for their efforts at the pharmacy college, including McDowell County native Dr. Susan L. Mayhew, who now serves as the associate dean of pharmacy; Whitney J.A. Caudill, the assistant dean of student and alumni affairs; Jerry Nesamony, the current assistant professor of pharmaceutics who has been with the college since the beginning; and many others.

“My dream is that Buchanan County will some day host one thousand students in graduate or undergraduate programs,” Kilgore said. “I’m just really enthused about Buchanan County, and the fact that the Board of Supervisors have decided to do something innovative.”

– Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com

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