RAPID CITY - For the past seven or eight years, Misty Bruch has wanted to go to college.

But she has needed to work and take care of her daughter. And family needs came before personal wants.

Now, however, the 26-year-old single mother hopes to blend those often-conflicting demands through the offerings of the West River Higher Education Center, where she will begin work on a double major in sociology and psychology from Black Hills State University in Spearfish.

And she'll do it without leaving Rapid City or neglecting the needs of her daughter.

"I need my primary focus to be on my daughter and what's going on with her," Bruch said after she met with an admissions official at the West River Higher Education Center headquarters at 515 West Blvd. "But this also allows me to focus on myself and my education."

Allowing students to focus on their lives while still pursuing a college degree is the central mission of the West River Higher Education Center. The center offers degrees and coursework from Black Hills State University, which Bruch will attend, as well as South Dakota State University, the University of South Dakota, Dakota State University and Northern State University.

The center serves about 1,600 students a year and faces a growing need for higher-education options quite different from what are found on traditional college campuses.

There is classroom space at four locations in Rapid City:

* West Boulevard headquarters

* Western Dakota Technical Institute's Rushmore Building

* South Dakota School of Mines & Technology

* The health-science building owned by Rapid City Regional Hospital on 11th Street

Tad Perry, executive director of the South Dakota Board of Regents, said the multiple locations are not as efficient or as convenient for students and faculty as they would be at one centralized location. That's why a new, consolidated higher-education center for Rapid City is "on the radar screen" for the regents, Perry said.

"The ideal long-term plan would be to find a home for all the regental programs, so we can have a single location, like we have in Pierre and Sioux Falls," Perry said. "We'd like a facility where students could do everything they need in one spot and not have to move around the city to put their programs together. That's the best of all worlds."

It's also the plan being followed in Sioux Falls and Pierre. The state broke ground last month in Sioux Falls for a new $20-plus-million higher-education complex near the northwest edge of the city, to consolidate educational services and provide space for growth in educational and research in the future.

The Sioux Falls center, which is currently housed at Southeast Technical Institute, serves 3,500 students annually - a number that is expected to grow dramatically in coming years.

In Pierre, the Capital University Center - which is celebrating its 25th year - is planning a $3.3 million facility that is expected to open by the fall of 2008. Like the new university center in Sioux Falls, the smaller Pierre complex will be built with a combination of federal and state money and private donations.

Hearing the story of Misty Bruch, Capital University Center director Ron Woodburn said she represents the majority of the students attending the center.

"It's the folks who are able to go to school here, where they couldn't pick up and go to a campus somewhere," Woodburn said. "Most of them have day jobs and families and all of that. They work so hard. They are all my heroes."

Like its more established counterparts in Sioux Falls and Pierre, the higher education center in Rapid City serves a mostly nontraditional body of students who need flexibility in class schedules and accessibility in location.

Misty Bruch works in the food-service trade now. It's respectable labor, but Bruch has professional plans beyond that. So do many others who come to the center. And the location and flexibility allows them the chance to pursue those ambitions.

"Those are largely the people we work with - the people who can't move and can't get away during the day to go to college," Sandee Schamber, BHSU operations director in Rapid City, said. "We also have a lot of people looking to change careers."

Schamber oversees programs now but also has been a teacher in the system. Like Woodburn, she admires the commitment and drive of those willing to add higher education to an already busy schedule.

"I've taught those evening classes. I'm not sure how some of them stay awake," she said. "The people here are focused. They know what they want and go after it. And they bring a lot of life experiences to class, which benefits other students."

The blend of students attending classes through the center also includes recent high school graduates who "just want to stay in town to go to college," Schamber said. They, too, would benefit from a consolidated facility, Perry said.

And as the demand for accessible higher education grows, so will the need for that new center, he said. The need was further heightened when the educational center at Ellsworth Air Force Base - a facility that Schamber praised as first-rate - was closed to the higher-education program and turned into an Air Force financial-servicing center.

"That was a real loss to us," she said. "That was a wonderful facility."

Eventually, Rapid City would have needed a center of its own, Perry said. Losing the Ellsworth facility pushed that reality sooner.

"Now, we need an alternative. And it's got to be located in Rapid City," he said.

A regents committee is exploring options for a Rapid City center and is expected to report back to the full Board of Regents by the end of the year or sometime early in 2008, Perry said.

People with hectic schedules and a flurry of family and work demands need educational options that fit into their daily hustle, Perry said. Most won't relocate and can't afford an hour of drive time to and from classes, Perry said.

"You can't tell somebody to spend an hour driving each way three times a week to get a course," Perry said. "It's not a very good investment of their time and energy."

Misty Bruch understands the need to spend her time and energy wisely. That's why she believes the higher-education center and its BHSU offerings will work for her.

"I've known for years that I wanted to go to college," she said. "But it's a struggle when you're a single mom. I don't think a regular college environment would work for me."

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com