Crookston High School worked with Travis Oliver’s first and seventh-hour Advanced Woods class on a renovation project. The project involved the students making a shiplap wall on the Middle School hallway entrance, which is on the east side of the building, and on the High School hallway entrance, which is on the west side of the building.
Shiplap is the style of cutting dados, square gaps in the wood, and then sliding the wood into each other with the dados. This way of building was used when making ships, which is appropriate for the school’s mascot, Pirates.
“Shiplap comes from the building of ships. It’s kind of the design,” Oliver said. “And us here as Pirates, Pirates had ships. So, we decided that was kind of a cool look, similar to other stuff we’ve done in the past. The kids took the raw wood and were able to teach them how to make that shiplap.”
Between the design, squaring up all the lumber, cutting the shiplap, staining, applying a polyurethane finish, and installing the board, the students put 18 class periods into the project. At an hour a day, that’s 18 hours to complete the project. Oliver explains what he hoped students would get out of the project.
“I’m always hoping that they gain experience,” says Oliver. “Seeing something that they’ve created, and they get to walk by it every day, take a little ownership in our school, and continue to spruce up the daily life of everyone that goes through these hallways. And I think they did a fantastic job.”
The students who helped build the project were Tim Brule, Dylan Thode, Brandon Colborn, Ashton Shockman, Parker Kelly, Matthew Owens, Tyler Michaelson, Koda Donarski, Jaime Brown, and Issac Ramirez.
Junior Dylan Thode helped with the High School entrance. This entailed processing the wood, staining it, and putting a protective coating on it. Thode describes the technique of processing the wood.
“We took it to the table saw. We cut down the rough dimensions,” Thode said. “We cut off any spots that we didn’t need, like the rough edge that was from the processing plant where the wood came from.”
Junior Brandon Colborn helped with the Middle School entrance. After putting the wood up, they put some creative touches to make the entrance more distinguishable.
“We made and spray-painted letters that say Middle School. Then we put a Pirate head in the middle,” Colborn said. “And then we put trim around the boards we glued to the wall to try and make it look like a Pirate ship as much as we could.”
Oliver said he’s proud of the students for taking ownership of the project and asking questions. He also says he’s excited about what they come up with next.
