Craftsman club is a club where students have a chance to express their creativity through the sounds of a bandsaw and the thumping of a hammer. Club president Jemma Walker believes the club teaches students valuable skills in the world of craftsmanship. 

“In Craftsman Club we teach a variety of skill levels of people that are working,” Walker said. “If people are new to all of the machinery, we will teach them a bit about it. It’s just more of a chance to allow people of all experiences to get a chance to work with all of that machinery and get comfortable with it.”

Craftsman Club meetings are only scheduled to last an hour, but members love the process of building so much that it is often difficult to get them out of the workshop.

“We meet every Monday from 3 to 4:30,” club sponsor Bryan Werner said. “Sometimes it lingers to 5 p.m. before I get the kids out of here. Also, a lot of the same kids come to my AIM class and they work on projects during AIM. That’s the same for my construction kids. They like to come in during AIM and work in the woodshop. I do too.” 

Fifteen kids funneling in and out of the workshop –and soon to be double that with the end of football and soccer season– can be a big task for one sponsor. Werner stresses the importance of power tool safety and often finds himself back in the workshop making sure the students know too.

“Sometimes when I am supposed to do my real school work, I find myself going out there,” Werner said. “I need to go out there and be with them because of all of the power tools. I need to make sure that they know what they are doing. I’ve actually done a pretty good job of making sure that the kids know how to use the drills properly.”             

The large number of participants and the consistency of his students is good for Werner as he is looking to compete in multiple competitions in the future. During these competitions, students are giving materials, tools, and a drawing. They have a certain amount of time to build these drawings to the best of their ability. They are graded on how well they recreated the drawings. This would be great credibility for the club.

“There is something called SkillsUSA, and Chef Grier has encouraged me to let my students participate in that,” Werner said. “However, I’m not sure I have that person yet that could make a really good run at the competition. It’s still only my second year of teaching, but I am starting to see kids that have potential to compete in another year of being here. Currently though, we do not compete, but we would love to.”

While looking for that person, the club is seeking to get their name out and gain more people that could possibly compete. Walker serves a big role in getting this recognition.

“I keep track of payment and numbers,” Walker said. “I also send out emails when needed, talk with Werner about the schedule and communicate with Werner about collaborating with other clubs.”

Collaboration can be what gets this club’s name out there, and while this club may go unnoticed, the projects they have made around the school have not. 

“We worked with the environmental club last year,” Walker said. “We were debating on making benches to replace the plastic benches around the school. We are in between having this club be free time for students to do other stuff and making some connections and branching out.”

While Walker and Werner would love to get their name out there, they also want to have a positive impact on the community and their club, something that they have already started doing. 

“Since we are a new, upcoming club that started last year, we just want our name to be a little more out and about,” Walker said. “We want to have an actual impact on the school. We want to do some projects together like making ornaments around christmas time, setting up a craft fair or charity events. We want to change this club from just making anything you want to actually doing things around the community. That’s the goal this year.”