COLUMBUS — Although it boasts a manicured golf course, a pro golf shop, a swimming pool, tennis courts and fine dining, the Lion Hills Center in Columbus isn’t your typical country club.

It is also an East Mississippi Community College campus that offers Associate Degrees and one-year certificate programs in Hotel and Restaurant Management, Culinary Arts, Golf/Recreational Turf Management and Landscape Management.

“It is really unique here,” Lion Hills Director Cheryl Hubbard said. “It is a college campus but we are also an auxiliary enterprise. We are the only community college in the state that has a working restaurant where our students can hone their craft. And the majority of the work on the golf course is performed by students in our Turf Management program.”

Hubbard was recently named director of the Lion Hills Center after serving as an accountant there for the past four years. Executive Chef Matthew Molina was also recently promoted after serving for 2.5 years as a chef at Lion Hills and instructor in EMCC’s Culinary Arts program.

Molina said while he has a full staff that includes a sous chef, pastry chef, cooks and a kitchen manager, students help run the full-service kitchen that offers lunch buffets that change each week, a Friday night chef’s special and Sunday brunch.

As part of their coursework, Culinary Arts students work in the kitchen under the guidance of Molina and their instructor and are taught how to make sauces, grill, fry and prep, among other things.

“Basically, they are taught the full gamut of how a kitchen works,” Molina said.

Students in the Hotel & Restaurant Management program also receive hands-on experience, while their counterparts in the Turf Management program learn best practices for the application of chemicals such as pesticides, fertilizers nitrogen, and the care of specific grasses, such as Bermuda, zoysia, bentgrass and ryegrass.

Formerly the Columbus Country Club, the facility was founded in 1923. On Nov. 1, 2012, EMCC officially took over the property and renamed it Lion Hills Center.

Hubbard said many people don’t realize that it is open to the public and membership is not required to play a round of golf or eat there.

Hubbard and Molina are planning more social events for members of the community, such as pottery painting, cookie decorating, cooking classes and family nights with activities for children and adults.

“We are talking about having a movie night where the parents can come for dinner and the children can watch a movie,” Hubbard said.

The next community event at Lion Hills is scheduled for Oct. 22, during the Festival on the Greens, which will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The public is invited to attend. The event will include a children’s Halloween costume contest and games, with candy handed out as prizes. Activities will include a pumpkin patch cupcake walk, face painting, a balloon artist, Halloween bingo and more. Food will be available for purchase. Lion Hills Center is located at 2331 Military Road in Columbus.

For more information about Festival on the Greens or services provided at Lion Hills Center, call (662) 328-4837.