The Crookston High School’s Community Projects class has remained busy over the past few weeks, and recently, a few more students have been able to showcase their work. Crookston High School students Jack Garmen, Elliot Bartrum, and Haden Michaelson recently re-did a few of the boy’s locker room benches at the Crookston High School.
Community Projects class teacher Travis Oliver believes that the previous benches had been in the building since it was initially built. Oliver is pleased and proud of the three students’ work on the new ones. “Those benches are kind of beat up, so a couple of students came to me and said that they wanted to build new benches,” said Oliver. “Seemed like a great project to me, so they started the process using some maple wood, and they were able to turn that into a finished product. They turned out great, and I hope other athletes in my classes can enjoy them in the years to come. The kids worked extremely hard and did a great job. It’s not an easy skill to teach or learn, so credit to them for being dedicated and for making them look good.”
There are still two benches in the locker room that need to be re-done, but the rest have been completed. A few signature benches have some wording written on the top of them, such as “Win The Day,” “Crookston,” and “Pirates,” while the other ones look brand new but have a blank canvas. Jack Garmen was one of the three students involved in the project, and he talked about their process. “We decided we wanted to do this project because the other benches were in rough shape,” said Garmen. “So, we got some boards together, figured out the dimensions that we wanted, and from there it was just about making sure they were smooth, so we sanded them down, and then with a couple of them did some specific Epoxy work for the lettering on top, and we’re happy with how they turned out.”
For Haden Michaelson, he is a little less experienced in this area, so his favorite part of the project was an easy answer. “My favorite part is just working with these guys and learning from them because I had never taken a woods class yet,” said Michaelson. “So getting to learn from them was nice, and outside of a few times when our boards weren’t wide enough, it was a smooth process, and we were able to figure things out, and it went well.”
All three students agreed this is one of the better projects they’ve worked on, and it feels good to know that they can leave something behind that will last for a long time.
For an entire conversation with Travis Oliver, you can tune in to KROX Saturday morning at 8:35 for the Focus on Education program. Oliver also discussed other projects students are working on and are close to wrapping up. He also mentioned a few projects he has in store later down the road. You can listen on 105.7 FM, 1260 AM, or by clicking “Listen Live” at the top of this page.
We will be checking back in with Oliver and talking with other students over the coming weeks once the other projects in the class are complete.
The first picture below from L-R: Jack Garmen, Elliot Bartrum, Haden Michaelson.
