Mike Rowe Applauds Great Falls Students Building Full Homes

If every once in a while you hear a story that makes you think, "Hey, maybe we are raising these kids right." Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame came through Great Falls this week and visited a high school shop class. But these kids were not building birdhouses. They are building actual houses. Real homes. Built to code. Move-in ready. The sort of thing most of us would outsource to a contractor, and here these teenagers are finishing it up before the lunch bell even rings.

A Program That Works

This program, High School Homes, has completed 48 full houses since it began in 1998. That is not a typo. There have been 48 families that now live in homes built by Great Falls students, led by instructor Pete Pace and a ton of community partners. Mike Rowe was floored. Governor Greg Gianforte was floored. And honestly, so was I.

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My son is in shop class now, and he loves it. He comes home telling me about the tools he used, what he measured, and the projects that he has coming up. It is pretty easy to cheer them on when you see kids in Montana go from measuring lumber to building full houses.

The Bigger Message

Rowe leveraged his time on site to speak about the skilled trades and the gap we are seeing across our country. He has been saying it for years. We need people who can weld, carpenters, plumbers, and electricians. We need these careers to be respected. We need these classes funded. Programs like that begin with a great teacher but go on because an entire community will not allow them to die.

Why It Matters

Students working with their hands are not only learning a trade; they are also being trained to use tools in other ways. They are learning confidence. They are learning responsibility. They are making something real. And, if you ask Mike Rowe, eliminating shop class from schools is one of the worst mistakes this country ever made. Watching these Montana youths assemble full houses pretty much confirms that he is right.