NPS students move to new dorms

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Nathan Clark
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. - --  Non-prior service students at the 97th Training Squadron recently moved to new dorm facilities for improved living conditions and quality of life. 

Last month, Building 213 was recently repurposed as student dorms and military training leaders located their office to the same building.

"We moved for two reasons; we were in Building 87 and our Airmen were in Building 83, so that created a distance between us," said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Mark Smith, military training leader flight chief from the 97th TRS. "The other reason was that the old facilities were outdated and this was a good chance to give the Airmen a better quality of life."

This move not only helped the students out, but their supervisors as well.

"Now the MTLs are centrally located for the Airmen," said Smith. "Our office is right here, the same place they live and hang out. We can see them from here and more easily interact with them and mentor them."

All Airmen now have their own rooms, said Smith. "Before, they had roommates and that got difficult because, the way their schedules worked, some people would have night classes, some had mornings and one person might be trying to study while the other wanted to play video games. Now there's no problem with that."

In addition to separate rooms for all the students, the new facilities feature a large dayroom with furniture, TVs and games, a laundry room, a centrally located MTL office, a full kitchen, two outdoor grilling locations and are planning on adding a reverse osmosis machine for drinking water, and cable for the building.

"It's nice to be able to have your own space," said U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Maranda Trujillo, a C-17 loadmaster student. "It gives us a chance to get away and unwind from all the busy stuff we have to do."

Although there are new living arrangements, the same expectations are held when concerning standards of cleanliness.

"We still have regular room inspections, but because it's such a nice building, they have more pride and take care of it really well," said Smith.

The clean facilities are not the only benefit of the move.

The new dorms are more centrally located, which makes it easier access to other facilities, said Smith. "It's more of a campus environment now. We've got the chapel right next door, the bowling alley and the Airmen Resilience Center right across the street. So now instead of walking across base for things, they just have to go across the street."

"I go to the bowling alley a lot more and it's just easier in general getting around," said Trujillo. "The MTLs are easier to access and a lot of people will hang out and cook in the kitchen."