PARIS – Second District Congressman Mike Michaud was honored Friday for his role in securing $200,000 for the Western Maine University and Community College Center.

The Democratic representative was given a framed rendering of the center by Central Maine Community College President Scott Knapp, in a ceremony led by former state Sen. Rick Bennett, a Republican from Norway.

Bennett said Michaud went to bat for the college when word went out that $200,000 more was needed to finish building the center, which also houses University of Maine programs and The Career Center.

“An extraordinary thing happened,” Bennett said. Maine’s two U.S. Senators, Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, drafted a bill and were able to secure the money from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

And then, in a separate measure, Michaud also was able to push through $200,000 from the Department of Education.

That meant that the center had twice as much as it had asked for, Bennett said.

“Don’t tell the folks down in Washington,” he joked.

The latest grant will be used for marketing and promotion efforts on behalf of the center, to boost enrollment now that the center is up and running.

The center’s nine-member advisory board, comprised of three people each from CMCC, the University of Maine and SAD 17, will meet to decide how the money should be used, he said.

Michaud said he was glad to have been of service, especially to a project near and dear to Bennett, with whom he shared the Maine Senate presidency in a unique arrangement after the vote deadlocked in a tie.

“I’d been 22 years in the Maine Legislature, and I thought I’d seen everything,” Michaud said of the power-sharing arrangement.

Michaud said enrollments are “skyrocketing” at community college centers like the one in Paris.

“Education is extremely important. It’s a good investment,” he said.

Michaud was in the Oxford Hills for a day-long tour of businesses and development projects for which the Growth Council of Oxford Hills is seeking federal funding and other legislative assistance.