Frankfort has been the hub of the Building Trades program as students from all four high schools from Clinton County have participated,
This year, 17 students from three of the four schools took part in a celebration at an Open House of the group’s latest house at 1833 Southridge Drive, which is located in the new Southridge Subdivision, which consists of 30 lots. All of those lots are nearly sold.
“I didn’t have anyone from Rossville this year,” said Supervisor and Instructor Darren Longenecker. “But I had two from (Clinton) Prairie, three from Clinton Central and the rest were from Frankfort. Frankfort is the majority of my students.”
Longenecker added they started the year with 19 students, but had two students drop the class.
The three-bedroom, two-bath house has a different look to those Building Trades has built in the past.
“It’s a really nice house,” said Longenecker. “We’ve typically built houses that we’ve done in the past. But, we decided to go a different route (this year). We went online and picked out some plans, took them to the board and kind of had a vote on what we wanted to go with. We saw this plan and we really liked it.”
Longenecker added they made a couple of modifications to the plan and went from there.
The Building Trades program will be back at it next year.
“We’re going to stay in this subdivision,” said Longenecker. “It’s been a very good place for us to build. So, we’re going to keep it here. I’d like to do a couple of different things. Just minor things.”
Longenecker just completed his second year as the Building Trades instructor. His family has an extensive construction background