Lac qui Parle Valley High School and Ridgewater College are working together to give students hands-on experience in meat cutting with a mobile meat lab.
Ridgewater College plans to offer advanced meat processing and meat cutting entrepreneur certificates, adding to the beginning meat cutting certificate it began offering last year.
Five Ridgewater programs took their shows on the road to Buffalo Lakes-Hector-Stewart High School. Fifty Marshall High School students also explored automotive classes at the Ridgewater campus.
Multiple colleges in North Dakota and Minnesota are starting up meat cutting programs to try to help meet a demand for workers. Some of the first North Dakota State College of Science students are interning with a small-town meat locker as part of that program.
As one generation prepares to retire, there's a need for younger people to learn the trade of meat processing and fill their shoes. Ridgewater College has stepped in to provide the training.