Kansas Wesleyan University will celebrate the opening of its new Emergency Operations Center on Saturday as a prelude to the big football game against Avila University.

The new, state-of-the-art EOC on campus provides students in the Emergency Management and Criminal Justice programs with a high-tech, hands-on teaching lab. At the same time, the EOC – fully functional at all times – provides a backup to the Saline County Emergency Operations Center should it ever be needed.

The open house is scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday. The center is located at Room 117 of Peters Science Hall on the Salina Campus. Special guests at the open house include Lonnie Booker, KWU Emergency Management Program Director; John Burchill, Criminal Justice Program Director, university Board of Trustees member Robert Loyd and Howard Pierpont, president and chief education officer for the DERA Institute for Preparedness and Resilience, which is the international association for preparedness and emergency response.

Kansas Wesleyan is the only university in the state with an in-residence Emergency Operations Management degree program.

As part of Saturday’s open house, a student-refurbished mobile communications unit will be on campus for the public to view, and the Saline County Sheriff’s Department will offer free child identification and fingerprinting through its KID PRINT program.

Any attendee also will be provided free tickets to the football game – pitting two NAIA national Top 25 teams in the No. 7 KWU Coyotes vs. the No. 21 Avila Eagles with a 1:30 p.m. kickoff. The winner of that game is the odds-on favorite to claim the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference championship and a home playoff berth.