MUSKOGEE, Okla. — The oldest college in the state might soon close its doors for good. After a three-year battle, Bacone College will be put up for public auction in December in Muskogee Court.
The latest problem began before the school's current administration. Board of Trustees member Leslie Hannah said former President Ferlin Clark signed off on HVAC work with Midgley-Huber Energy Concepts before proper funding was acquired in 2020.
Three years later, the college didn't secure the necessary funding, so MHEC filed a breach of contract lawsuit. The school was originally scheduled to be sold before this school year to take care of the debt, but administrators asked for it to be postponed so they could try to get money together.
Officials never gathered the funding, so the school is now officially going up for auction in a Muskogee court on Dec. 14.
MHEC's attorney, Rick Sorensen, said they did not want it to come to this and tried a number of times over the years to avoid this outcome. However, the judgment ruled Bacone owes the company over $1.5 million.
"It’s been a hardship for the company, as well," said Sorensen. "Would have loved to have worked it out with them, but I don’t see any other options at this point."
Jordan Kerby is in the middle of his freshman year and came to Bacone to play baseball. He said the uncertainty of the situation makes him sad and nervous.
"We don’t really know where we’re gonna go, we don’t know what we’re gonna do," said Kerby." I just got here to play baseball, and I mean, if the school ends and shuts down, I don’t know where I’m gonna go."
Hannah said he found out about the auction with the rest of the community - in the Muskogee Phoenix newspaper last week. He said he and the board are shocked it came to this.
"My understanding is that payment plans were discussed, and the company soundly rejected it," said Hannah. "They wanted their money now."
However, according to the company's attorney, no official offers for payment were made in the last three years.
"They may have said they’d like to make payments, but they’ve never come to us with any kind of an agreement that would say ‘here’s how much we would like to pay,’" said Sorensen. "That’s just never happened.”
The money issues of the school are no secret. Athletic Director Tyrell Cummings said he saw a lot of changes in the eight years he's been on staff.
"Just trying to catch up on the bills, and once we ran out of that loan grace and everything, so we started losing a lot more money then, and so we ended up having to sell a lot of the land," said Cummings.
The faculty, staff, board, and students are all hopeful that the school can be saved before it goes up to auction. While the school is not affiliated with any tribe, Hannah said he is fearful for what the future could look like as many of their students come from under-served communities.
"Most of our students are tribal from some Indian nation somewhere, and if they don’t have Bacone, they don’t have an educational home," said Hannah.
Hannah said they have discussed fully online operations as a possible option to ensure that their students who are close to graduating can receive their degrees.
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