Viking House: A Work In Progress

Bianca Bermejo and Victoria Murgia

The Viking House program is one that was established in 1973 by Birt Hansen and it is an incredible program that has successfully built a house every year following the construction of their first house in 1975. It is a program that has time and time again proved itself to the community and has earned itself the reputation of being one of the best High School Advanced Construction Programs. For the past couple of years it has even been part of home shows going up against professional builders, and last year they swept in the People’s Choice awards in the NW Shows of Homes.  The thing that makes Viking House special is that it is a program that would not be successful without the hard work of  the Forest Grove High School students who make up the crew of 16.

The 2016-2017 Viking House crew is a very special group. It was a crew selected by the head of the program, Chris Higginbotham, and consists of 12 boys and 4 girls; Bianca Bermejo, Emilio Ceja, Atziri Cruz, Harrison Dotson, Nicholas Hartman, Lucas Higginbotham, Ethan Jewett, Trevor McGougan, Victoria Murguia, Brandon Noffsinger, John Rasmussen, Connor Robinson, Diego Ruiz Diaz, Annika Rusaw, Hunter Steele, and Riley Stewart. They are a diverse group, but each one of them strives to do their absolute best and puts in 110% effort and work hard to push the project forward. They are about 12 weeks into the Construction of the 2016-2017 House, and have impressively met deadlines sooner than expected. A particularly exciting day for all Viking House members was truss day, which was a total success with the help of  Viking House Alumni and the professionals that came out. With trusses up, the crew has managed to get the roof done in no time allowing the interior of the house to begin the process of drying .Now the crew is focused on meeting code requirements as well as continuing the framing process.

This year’s Viking House is shaping up to be a wonderful piece of work, we are excited to see the end of result of all the hard work being put in by both staff and students of the Viking house program.