Howard College is a community college with its main campus in Big Spring, Texas and branch campuses in San Angelo and Lamesa.HistoryHoward County Junior College was established in Big Spring in 1945. 148 students began lessons in September 1946, in the hospital wing of the former Big Spring Army Air Force Bombardier School (later Webb Air Force Base). Five years later the school moved to a 100acre site in southeast Big Spring which came to include an administration-classroom-library building, a practical-arts building, a greenhouse, a music building, dormitories, and a 10,000-seat stadium. The Lamesa campus was established in 1972 and the first class in San Angelo was held the following year. The school's name changed to Howard College by 1974. In August 1980 the school opened the Southwest Collegiate Institute for the Deaf on 57acre of the former Webb Air Force Base, and it took over a nursing program in San Angelo the following year.CampusThe main campus occupies 120acre in Big Spring, with another 276acre near Stanton in Martin County for agricultural research, and a 20acre rodeo facility east of town. There are branch campuses in San Angelo, Lamesa, and at the SouthWest Collegiate Institute for the Deaf in Big Spring; the college also offers programs at the Big Spring Federal Correctional Institute and the Eden Detention Center.
