As the school year moves further into the first semester and closer to midterms, many classes dig deeper into the more challenging and hands on features of their subject. Ricky Viator’s double-blocked welding class and Wayne Stephenson’s double-blocked Building Trades class have both moved on to applying what they have learned to hands on activities.

These past few months, Stephenson’s Building Trades class has been working vigorously to complete their picnic tables they’re planning on selling, including one they will donate to the upcoming Berry Merry Christmas Market auction.

“These particular tables will be sold with the proceeds going towards new equipment for Building Trades,” Stephenson said. “We built one the first two weeks of school that we donated for the Berry Merry Christmas auction hosted by the Education Foundation.”

Stephenson said the students don’t take long to finish their projects and they tend to finish them in a matter of a few weeks.

“Something like a picnic table takes about 2-4 weeks depending on the complexity,” Stephenson said. “The one in the picture (seen above), we built four, and it took us about six weeks.”

Viator’s class took on an original project, doing something only outside-of-the-box thinkers could have imagined up…an iron man barbecue pit.

“At first it was going to be a welding man made out of scrap metal to get rid of it,” Viator said. “Jordahn Cockerham came up with the idea to make it a barbecue pit.”

The welders took around ten weeks to finish the project, working very hard at the task, while still having fun. To celebrate finishing the pit, the students took a day off to cook on it.

“I just wanted something for the boys to be interested in, to look at and say, ‘Hey, I built that,'” Viator said. “We may even roll it to the front office so people can drive by and look at it.”

According to Stephenson, both classes have many projects planned ahead for the rest of the year.

“We have several more on the agenda,” said Stephenson. “Next up is to build Lifeguard Chairs out of Spanish Cedar.”

The welding classes will soon start selling horseshoe Christmas tree with prices ranging from $55-$75 to pay for extra supplies for the department.