LTEC Building Trades completes another new home project

 

[June 12, 2020] 

The Lincolnland Technical Education Center Building Trades class recently completed their 2019-20 school year project. Because of coronavirus, the house was completed under some very unusual circumstances, and instructor John Ford had to roll with the punches to complete the house alone.

Ford, who is the owner of Ford Construction in Atlanta, signed on to be the instructor at the beginning of the school year. Having never served in education, it was going to be a new experience for him, but one that LTEC Director Matt Puckett said Ford was well prepared for.

The school year began with 18 students. Two students from Illini Central High School in Mason City and three students from the Williamsville/Sherman High School joined 13 students from Lincoln Community High School in working on the project.

The home is located at 1704 Pekin Street on property that was owned by the city of Lincoln. The LTEC worked with Lincoln Aldermen to acquire city owned property that was divided into three building lots. The 2020 house is the second of three builds on the Pekin Street properties.

According to Puckett, building the home was moving along very well, and the students were about four weeks out from completion when schools were closed due to coronavirus. Because the original plan of the state was to only be shut down for a few weeks, construction on the home stopped, with hopes that students would be able to return to it when schools re-opened.

By the end of March it was clear that schools were not going to re-open any time soon and the project couldn’t be put on hold any longer. Fortunately, Ford is a construction expert who had actually designed the entire home from the ground up. He set about the task of completing the home on his own so the school could move forward with the seller process.

The program is designed to allow participation in an organized fashion by each of the students. The class is divided into two groups and each group works two hours per day each school day on the home. Therefore, Ford went from an 18 person crew to working solo. Nonetheless, the home was finished on time and placed for sale this spring.

The house is a three bedroom, two bath and open floor concept with an oversized garage. It was completed and sold before the official end of the school year. The school took sealed bids for the home, and on May 8th announced that the winning bid had been placed by Darrell and Pamela Turner of Atlanta. On June 11th, the couple closed on their new home.

With the sale of the house, the LTEC did turn a profit on this year’s build. According to Puckett coming out profitable on the student built homes is not an easy task, so he feels very blessed that this year’s home sold so well. The profits from the sale of the home will be split between the LTEC and the city of Lincoln as that is how the purchase agreement on the city owned property was set up.

“The LTEC Building Trades Class and Mr. Ford did an outstanding job and put together a professional project that this community will be proud of,” said Puckett. “I also want to thank the parents of the Building Trades Class students who encouraged these young adults to learn skills and a trade that will benefit them all their life.”

Puckett also commented “We are also very fortunate that we have a career center program (LTEC) for our area that enables us to pool our resources and enrollments of seven member high schools to have programs like Building Trades. The member high schools are: Greenview, Hartsburg-Emden, Illini Central, LCHS, Mount Pulaski, PORTA and Williamsville-Sherman.”

Puckett also expressed thanks to former Lincoln Mayor and owner of ME Realty Seth Goodman, “His help was instrumental in making this project not only a curriculum success, but a financial success as well.”

Lincoln Community High School has had a building trades program since the 1940s. In 1967, LCHS and other area high-schools partnered to form the LTEC Building Trades program.

Since that time the LTEC has built a number of homes in our local communities. The class has also been involved with a number of refurbish and rebuild projects on homes already standing.

In addition, a few years ago, for the first time, the class worked hand in hand with Habitat for Humanity of Logan County for a successful build for that program. To date, the LTEC has done two homes in partnership with Habitat.

This coming school year, the LTEC will once again join forces with Habitat to build a new home for a deserving family here in Logan County. This third home will be built at Madison and First Streets in Lincoln

Puckett said that the third property on Pekin Street will be targeted for construction in 2021. The LTEC will look at the housing market trends a year from now and determine if the time is right for a new construction project. If so they will move forward.

The LTEC program offers technical education in the following areas: Advanced Metals, Automotive Technology, Building Trades, CEO Program, Computer Science, Cosmetology, Criminal Justice, Culinary Arts, Fire Science and Health Occupations (CNA).

Enrollment is open to any junior or senior student regardless of their level of knowledge or experience. There are no prerequisite classes required.

The program also offers dual credits with Heartland Community College in the areas of Advanced Metals (six college credit hours), Health Occupations (eight college credit hours) and Building Trades (three college credit hours).

Any student or parent interested in learning more about the LTEC can find a great deal of information on the LTEC website (LTEC41.org) or they may telephone [phone] extension 1282.

[Nila Smith]