Columbia Falls High School triad program finishes up playhouses

Seniors in the business trades triad program at Columbia Falls High School recently finished four playhouses that will go to some lucky kids out there. One of the homes was donated to the Head Start North Valley Center for the preschoolers and the other three will be sold by auction and raffle to help fund future projects.

Brynn Cadigan teaches the English class for the triad program and helped the students plan and organize the fundraiser. Some of the students will sell raffle tickets for the playhouses at the home football game Friday, Oct. 16 and at the band concert Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. They also sold them at the recent volleyball and choir concerts. The class is all about real world experiences, so they put an auction up on Craigslist for one of the houses. Western Building Center will have one set up in front of its building.

Industrial arts teacher Ken Stone has guided his students in the building project from the ground up starting last year. Part of the reason for building playhouses was because he had 24 students in his building trades class last year. The full senior class was unusually large, thus increasing the size of the first triad class. The current class has 17 students. Stone had to find a big enough project so the students could all learn a technique at the same time. They worked in groups of six for both semesters, one hour every school day. The triad program received a grant from Plum Creek to buy whatever materials were needed for the project.

Stone said that he believes in giving back to the community, especially being in the industrial arts department.

“We are very fortunate in this community to have the community support that we do, it’s incredible,” he said. Plum Creek donated most of the lumber that’s waiting to be used in the shop.

Senior Tyler Murphy said that he liked working on the playhouses because “it feels good to give back to the community.” He’s in the triad program because he wanted to add skills to what he already knew about carpentry from working with his family.

The playhouses were mostly completed by last year’s class. This group finished them by putting up trim, framing, painting and completing electrical work for outlets and lights.

The triad program gives students hands-on math, English and building trades skills for life after high school.

Senor Gabe Love is in the class to help him figure out what sort of job he wants to do after graduating. He said that he enjoys the hands-on learning of the class that is related to real life skills. He cut the trim for the playhouses, something he learned in his four previous years of wood shop classes.

“The last year’s class did so much, then we went in and fixed their mistakes,” joked senior Troy Meyer

Caitlyn Long chose the class partly because of her interest in carpentry and also because it was different than her usual Advanced Placement classes.

“The AP classes are cool to get me ready for college, but I also wanted something that’s going to get me ready for life,” she said.

Helping paint the trim and exterior of the playhouses and working with her teammates was a good experience, she said.

“As a team we all worked together really well,” she said.