The following was reprinted from The Council, Idaho, MIRA Project:

Council is the county seat of Adams County. The county as a whole has a population of approximately 3,800 and Council approximately 1,000. The area is natural resource dependent and the main industries are logging, farming, ranching and recreation on the national forest, which makes up 55% of the land base in Adams County. The county has led the state in unemployment for the last four years and is currently at approximately 14%. Low to moderate income families dominant the population.

The Council Learning Center was established by a group of Adams County residents who recognize the necessity for small rural communities to adapt to the changing economic forces present in our country today. Historically dependant upon a natural resource based economy, this area was forced to change its focus following the closure of the Boise Cascade Mill in Council in 1995.

As part of a strategy to effect that change, a group of approximately 15 area residents representing many organizations, businesses, and agencies, formed a team and joined with five other timber-dependant communities throughout the State of Idaho to apply for a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation through their Managing Information in Rural America (MIRA) program. The Idaho communities in our cluster were Council, Priest River, Wieppe, Plummer, Pierce, and Bovill. Our cluster of communities was one of five funded throughout the United States. The stated goal of the MIRA initiative was "to draw upon the reservoirs of strength, tenacity, and civic commitment in rural communities and to help rural people use information systems and technologies as a tool to meet current and future challenges."

The cluster organized and attended a series of six working sessions in Lewiston, Idaho, to learn how to deal with economic change in our communities. After the workshops were complete, each community submitted a project proposal and received $15,000 from the Kellogg Foundation to fund that project. Council chose to establish the Council Learning Center, a forum for community learning. In designing the project, the Council MIRA team identified several issues as important in addressing community change and economic development effectively. One issue is the importance of increasing the base of available information through the use of appropriate technology. Making the information work, however, depends on the internal human strengths of the community. Working with those strengths and bringing the vitality of the community into play are guiding principles of the project.

We realized at once that $15,000 was not enough to establish a full-fledged learning center. We sought, therefore, to capitalize on the resources already available in the community. We have formed partnerships with the Adams County Development Corporation (ACDC), the economic development group in the county, and the U.S. Forest Service to locate our center's base of operation in the Council Visitor's Center. The Visitor's Center is located in a historic Forest Service building on Highway 95 in Council and is operated and funded by ACDC. We applied for and received donated furniture from USDA Rural Development. We have equipped our center with a computer and software, a printer, and a Fax machine for public use.

To promote the use of technology within our county, we partnered with the Council School District to gain access to the High School computer lab. We hired local instructors and offered computer classes last winter. The response was overwhelming! We were able to complete six 12-hour computer courses covering subjects including Beginning Computer, Microsoft Word, and the Internet. Each of the six classes had between 15 and 17 adult students of all ages. This year we have completed four more 12-hour classes and have plans for more.

Last but not least, we have taken advantage of a wonderful opportunity to expand our program to respond to the needs of a hard-working and endangered segment of our population-farmers and ranchers.

David Wells, a resident of Adams County and a BSU instructor, approached us. He proposed to offer business management courses to the farmers and ranchers of the area and was looking for an appropriate site. Because his classes are daylong sessions, the school was not able to accommodate this use. The City of Council agreed to his use of its conference facility, complete with video-conferencing capabilities, but had no computers for his use. The Council Learning Center has purchased and installed five computers in this facility, thereby forming a partnership with the City, through which we are allowed to use the room free of charge for our own classes and workshops. We are charging a nominal fee for the use of the computers, $15 per hour for all five, so they can be maintained and replaced as necessary. Mr. Wells' class is currently being taught, and other private instructors have expressed interest in using the facility.

The Council Learning Center is becoming self-supporting through modest tuition fees, rental of our equipment to private instructors, and donations at the Visitors Center. Because of the Kellogg Foundation and our MIRA Project, the future of technological education in Adams County looks bright!!