Staff writer
The sale of the house built by the 2009 Marion High School construction class closed Sept. 14.
Larry and Jane King of Hillsboro bought the house for $97,500. The Kings are the parents of Lucas King, who teaches the MHS construction class.
Larry is the pastor of Good News Christian Fellowship in Marion and Jane is the director of nursing at Parkside Homes in Hillsboro. The Kings are returning to Marion, where Lucas said they lived for 25 years. They were living in a farmhouse north of Hillsboro but they sold the property.
While the sale of last year’s house was being finalized, this year’s construction class has been hard at work with a new house next door. Homestead Affordable Housing, an organization out of Holcomb, bought the land and provided tool bags and blueprints for each of the 20 students in the class this year. They also provided $3,000 in power tools.
Homestead Affordable Housing will sell the completed house at a reduced price to a low-income family.
However, Homestead had to purchase the land from the school district; while the class waited for the deal to finalize, they worked on a shed to go behind last year’s house. King said the shed was a good project to allow the class to acquaint itself with the tools and materials.
“It was nice building something that’s going to be used,” King said, “instead of cutting boards to cut boards.”
Dustin Hett, of Hett Construction, was contracted to work on the foundation for the new house. Last year, King helped put in the foundation over the summer, but because it took time for the Homestead deal to finalize, the students were able to help Hett pour the concrete for the foundation.
“It was neat for kids to pour walls to see how vertical concrete is poured,” King said.
Also new this year, the house is using Insulating Concrete Form foam around the concrete foundation. The foam helps seal in heat and air conditioning, helping to simultaneously reduce heating and cooling costs and reduce emissions. The students helped put up the foam, which King compared with building with Legos.
“It was fun,” student Blake Crawford added.