In the past 25 years, 500 engineers have graduated from the University of Kentucky without traveling the Bluegrass Parkway.

The U.K. College of Engineering, Paducah campus recruits and retains talent in the region.

Our Laura Rogers shares how it also helps students get a college education closer to home.

On the campus of West Kentucky, Community and Technical College is another school of great minds.

I love putting things together and taking them apart.

Colby Gore has plans to pursue a master's degree in aerospace engineering.

And I've always worked on things my whole life and try to fix everything that ever went.

Wrong.

Seth BURNETT is a co-op at Jackson Purchase Energy.

My father was a mechanical engineer and he unfortunately lost his vision before I was born.

And so a lot of the projects around the house we did together and he was the brains of the operation and I was always the hands.

Abby Templeton is a chemical engineering major who wants to focus on environmental concerns.

All three among the 130 students currently enrolled at University of Kentucky College of Engineering Paducah campus.

That first class just really opens up your eyes to how many opportunities that can be presented to you and what path you can actually take through this program.

The campus was created to fill the workforce of local industries.

The company knew this area had a difficulty to recruit engineers and the community had a radical idea to bring a four year junior school here.

So having engineering here in the purchase region allows us to recruit local students, develop that talent here, and then place that talent here for the benefit of business and industry, which supports really a pretty vibrant and changing economy here in this part of the state.

Psychology Coast out of the gate.

It also provides an opportunity for those in the region to get their college education close to home.

I want to say close to my family, my friends, and still have those hometown relations and, you know, Paducah being so close and having what I really wanted to do was the full package for me.

Students are also drawn to the smaller class settings and more one on one attention.

The college is committed to research, even international outreach work.

I'm particularly interested in addressing the global waste plastic challenge and we've developed a process to convert waste plastic to diesel fuel.

We work all over the world.

The big Blue Barbecue Gala, a celebration of the school's accomplishments over the past 25 years.

Officials Credit community support for the school's continued success.

And this is a great event for us.

For me, I get to do two primary things.

One, congratulate the faculty, the staff here who have worked so hard to make this program excellent.

And the second thing is to say thank you.

Nobody does it better than Paducah when it comes to finding solutions to problems and creating opportunity that that benefits everybody.

And this is a classic example of that.

The campus is also fortunate to have the passion of its students, like Ted Alden, who serves as chapter president of the UK, Paducah Society of Women Engineers, and hopes to inspire more girls to pursue STEM careers.

And so that's what I want to be for more young women in our area, just that source of empowerment that you don't have to question it.

Just take the leap and do it.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

The college is now looking ahead to the next 25 years.

A goal in the near future is to add a degree program and computer engineering technology.

The dean says they're in the final stages of the approval process and that it will add a new facet to the educational opportunities in western Kentucky.