Multi-use Sports Complex
The latest miracle at Joshua Tree’s Copper Mountain College.

	Image courtesy of Copper Mountain College
	Architect’s concept of the completed Bell Center.

Copper Mountain College is almost the smallest of California's 110 community colleges. Given massive state budget cuts, the construction of the Bell Center is considered a miracle to many in this small high desert community.

But then again, that CMC exists at all
is a miracle.

Now a fully accredited community college as well as its own district, CMC began as a collection of scattered community classrooms in 1969. By 1981, a group of residents who had been active in developing CMC began fundraising efforts to build a college after having been denied state funding.

Just three years later, in 1984, the group traveled to the White House where they were honored with a Volunteer Action Award by then-President Ronald Reagan for funding a public institution with mostly private funds. The Friends of CMC, later called the CMC Foundation, accepted the award on behalf of the 40,000 Morongo Basin residents who helped raise the majority of the $2 million needed to build the initial Copper Mountain Campus.

Located between Joshua Tree National Park and the largest live-fire Marine Corps base in the world, the residents of the Morongo Basin have always tried to make their vast, multi-faceted rural community self-contained.

In 1999 the residents voted overwhelmingly to break off from their parent district in Palm Desert and the Copper Mountain Community College District was born. In only 15 years, from 1984 to 1999, the extraordinary residents of the Morongo Basin took CMC from a campus to a college and a separate district.

Now that CMC is celebrating 10 years of independence, the community is savoring its ability to survive. The College's combination of small size and casual desert character has created a successful and unique learning environment that allows its 2,500 students one-on-one access to professors, resources, and staff, including the College President.

	Image courtesy of Copper Mountain College
	The Bell Center’s 40,000 square feet will almost double the size of the existing CMC campus. Included in its floor plan is a gymnasium, fitness center, training facilities and offices, community room, and a snack bar/warming kitchen.

Today, the College's Board of Trustees includes many of the original participants in CMC and together they represent over 110 years of experience with this unique institution. It is this group that is preparing for its next miracle: the Bell Center.

Ringing in the Bell Center
The Bell Center is named for Basin residents Leota Bell and her late husband William, who supplied $1.5 million in private matching funds to secure $13 million from the State of California.

At a time when many California public construction projects are suspended, CMC considers the construction of this state-of-the-art multi-use sports facility a miracle.

The community gave careful consideration to adding physical education facilities so quickly to the new college but decided that making CMC a “comprehensive campus” was crucial to its growth.

The Bell Center gymnasium and sports complex was approved by the state in 2001 and the budget included funding for outfitting the gymnasium and the sports fields. But the Bell Center was soon sidelined when the endangered desert tortoise was found nesting on the120-acre campus.

Today, eight years later, the Bell Center sits adjacent to a federally protected desert tortoise sanctuary located on the campus. Cost increases have resulted in a scaled down complex, and the CMC Foundation is hoping for another miracle to help them provide funding for additional equipment and sports fields.

Although educational budget woes mean competitive sports won’t come to this high desert community as quickly as they’d like, college administrators are developing health and wellness programs that will utilize the Bell Center’s fitness center, classrooms, and exercise facilities. CMC is also excited about introducing the 2,000-seat Bell Center to a region with only a few 300-seat venues. Given the economic potential for a venue of this size and state cuts to physical education, many Morongo Basin residents are content to focus, for now, on the Bell Center's multi-use capabilities.

The Bell Center’s stage will allow CMC to develop its music and theater programs and to host large-scale performing arts events. With a warming kitchen and access to catering facilities, the 28,000- square-foot gymnasium and 2,200-square-foot community room can also host conferences, expositions, and meetings.
However, educators are also committed to developing the fitness center and using gymnasium space to add community dance classes, expand the popular yoga classes, and provide, for the very first time, basketball and volleyball classes.

CMC also plans to expand its successful allied health program into areas of fitness and wellness to help future students derive the health benefits associated with collegiate athletic programs.
As funding for sports becomes available, the Bell Center will complete its  hydrotherapy, taping, and treatment rooms and institute a program of athletics and sports health education.

	Image courtesy of Copper Mountain College
	A CMC graduate celebrates the monument’s name change from Copper Mountain “Campus” to Copper Mountain “College".

Another Miracle in the Wings
The CMC Foundation understands that raising funds to complete the original design for the Bell Center sports complex comes at a time of great opportunity as community colleges assume a more important role in the nation.

Recognizing the present fiscal challenge, the alumni of Copper Mountain College are joining in to support the Bell Center fundraising efforts. They believe that CMC and the Morongo Basin will once again achieve the impossible. 

Although as they sometimes say in the Morongo Basin, and especially at CMC, one miracle at a time.

To know more about CMC and the Bell Center, or to register as an alumnus, visit the website at www.cmccd.edu, or contact the CMC Foundation at 760.366.3791 ext. 4200, or visit www.theCMCF.org.