Whew, it’s in the Books! The Tri Star Open House record books that is.

Tri Star’s annual Open House for prospective students, the first in the new building, was held Monday evening, Jan. 13^th. There have been other open houses at the new Tri Star building, but this Open House was geared specifically to help students with their decision to attend a Tri Star program. The public was invited to see the new building as well.

The mid-year open house has been an annual event since the 1990’s beginning in the old facilities at Coldwater, Celina, and St. Marys. This year’s Open House was quite different, but by far the best ever hosted by Tri Star, AND, it set a record. Attendance at the event was recorded at 789 based on those attendees who filled out a sign-in sheet. Not everyone signed in, but 789 visitors is a record for attendance at any Tri Star open house ever. That number does not include Tri Star’s staff, students, and the college/business representatives who helped make the evening the success it was.

This year, with everything under one roof, all you had to do was make one stop to visit one or all 14 programs rather than run to three different locations. Attendees were also able to tour the Tri Star house that the senior construction students are building. It is located within walking distance of the new Tri Star building on Lake Acres Drive. Representatives from three colleges, Rhodes State, UNOH, and Wright State Lake, plus the Mercer County Civic Foundation and Celina Tent were on hand to answer questions about college and scholarship opportunities.

Unfortunately, along with the record attendance, came a few unexpected issues like parking. Some attendees had to park across the street in Wright State Lake Campus’s lot because there was just no place to park. Twenty-four dozen cookies were just not enough to feed the crowd. And although about 100 Tri Star staff and students were at the ready to show off the building and their programs, there wasn't time or thought for taking photographs of the evening.

Many thanks to all who helped in one way or another: Tri Star students, instructors, administration, and custodians; Tri Star Advisory Board Member Rick Kramer; college reps Chad Teman from Rhodes, Shauna Roob, Bruce Patton, and John Cottrell from UNOH, Mark Hibner and Chris Blain from Wright State Lake; and Carol Hone from the Mercer County Civic Foundation and Jill Roy from Celina Tent.

And finally, special thanks to all those community members, from Celina, Coldwater, Fort Recovery, Marion Local, Minster, New Bremen, New Knoxville, St. Henry and St. Henry, who made it out to the open house and who support Tri Star.