In 1971 the Murray Vocational School was opened by the state of Kentucky to train Murray and Calloway County high school students in various trades to be employees for local area businesses. Located next to Murray High school, facing Sycamore street, the training center utilized two buildings owned and maintained by the Murray Independent School District. The east building was comprised with Auto Body, Auto Mechanics, Appliance Repair and Carpentry shops. The West building housed the administrative offices, Business Office, Marketing, and Nursing classes.

Through the years, adult classes have been provided for local employers and residents of Calloway County seeking to improve or learn new skills. West Kentucky Community and Technical College System (WKCTCS) used the Vocational Center as a local campus for adult Nursing classes.

Changes Over the years...

As community needs changed, programs changed accordingly. In the 1990's Appliance Repair was replaced with an Industrial Maintenance program and the Auto Body program area was transformed into an employee training area used by Briggs and Stratton and Kenlake Foods. During the summer of 2001 the Industrial Maintenance program was divided into two separate programs, Machine Tool and Welding. Welding stayed in the original Appliance Repair shop and Machine Tool moved into the original Auto Body shop.

In the early 2000's the buildings were needing a considerable amount of maintenance and upgrades to meet the needs of current day education and industry training. Both the Murray and Calloway boards began discussing options with the state on how to meet these needs as well as the community needs. After a few years of research, discussions and planning the decision was made to build a new facility that would be co-owned by both districts and centrally located between both high schools.

October 2016 the Murray / Calloway County Area Technology Center moved into its new location at 126 Robertson Road North. The Calloway County and Murray Independent school boards worked together to plan and build a new building for the ATC (Area Technology Center) which would become the first ATC in the state to be co-owned between multiple districts. Plans included improved areas for current programs and to add an additional shop area and Health Science classroom for future programs. At the time of the move there were six programs in operation, Automotive Technology, Carpentry, Culinary, Machine Tool, Nursing, and Welding.

For current program offerings and staff information checkout our "Programs" and "Meet the Staff" pages.