A recent grant to Flathead Valley Community College through the city of Kalispell will be a boon to the heavy equipment operator program at the school.

The Montana Department of Commerce gave the city $359,500 to buy machinery for FVCC’s program, enough money to increase the equipment and thus the program’s student population by 50 percent.

Pete Wade, director of Career and Technical Education at FVCC, said the no-frills program was humming with suspense over the announcement.

“I told the students and they were really excited and interested,” Wade said. “They kept asking, ‘Is it Christmas? Did Santa come yet?’”

Santa finally did come, and the grant will be used to buy five or six more gently used pieces of machinery. In Wade’s proposal were a grader, bulldozer, scraper, loader, two excavators and a piece for a roller.

“They are pieces of machinery that shove dirt around,” an understated Wade said. “We get some pieces that aren’t really old with not a tremendous amount of engine hours on them.”

The program, which currently can handle 20 students, would be able to add another 10. It is two semesters long and gives people the training to work construction.

Many of the student hours at the end of the term are used doing jobs for nonprofits or government agencies.

The area where the students use the machines is slightly north of campus, tucked away from the highway. When not in use, the machines are stored in a Quonset hut near the logger sports arena.

The grant itself, part of the Department of Commerce’s Community Development Block Grant Program, has some stipulations for the money: The machinery must be bought within six months of the funding availability, the program will be monitored for at least two years, and FVCC will match any additional costs out of its reserves.

During the two year, four-semester monitoring period, the program expects to draw an additional 80 students because of the grant, 48 of whom will come from low to moderate income levels.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.