It all started with welding. While all ag classes are popular at Rigby High School (a top-10 nationally ranked program), class sizes have been manageable. That’s not the case for welding. Rigby’s welding program has been bursting at the seams for years. Several school bonds have been proposed to accommodate the growth across the district and within the agriculture program, which houses the welding practicum. The latest proposal, if passed, would have created a career and technical education (CTE) campus adjacent to the current high school.
When the bond failed twice, ag teachers Lex Godfrey, Robert Hale and Casey Sanders had no choice but to solve the problem themselves.
For the past three years, they’ve taught 24 welding sections throughout the school year – a major feat considering they have just one welding shop.
“We're sharing welders,” explains Hale, "but we're mostly overlapping welding classes with our introduction to agricultural mechanics classes because they only weld for about half the time. As long as we have a classroom and the shop, we can kind of trip over each other as we do this.”
The Rigby High School technology building currently houses the agriculture, automotive technology and woodworking departments. Within its walls live the welding shop and the automotive shop, and a smaller woodworking shop.
“It looked like an opportunity for us to pick up another shop if we built them a better place to go, so that's where this thing started,” recalls Hale.
Rigby ag department teachers stand in the new automotive technology shop housed within the CTE building on Rigby High School campus. Pictured from left to right are Austin Davis, Robert Hale, Lex Godfrey and Casey Sanders. Image by Paige Nelson.
Building for growth
In early 2022, Godfrey was asked to serve on the Idaho Career Ready Students Board. He was one of two teachers selected from throughout the state. The board secured $40 million from the legislature for CTE programs in Idaho.
“As those applications started to come in and we were looking at those and what was being funded, I sat down with Mr. Robert Hale and said, ‘We have as much need as anywhere else in the state,’” recalls Godfrey.
Hale, Godfrey and Sanders decided their best bet was to apply for a grant to help erect a new CTE building on campus to house the automotive department, giving them room to expand into the old auto shop. Administration and other CTE departments agreed and work moved forward.
Local architect Isaiah Womack of Cottonwood Architecture offered his expertise pro bono and drew up a basic floor plan for a 100-foot-by-200-foot building. Godfrey and Rigby High School Principal Bryan Lords took the plans to Rob Roberts of R&M Steel in Boise for a cost estimate to submit with their grant proposal.
Godfrey says Roberts took one look at the plans and said, "Your building's too small. You're building for capacity. This program's going to continue to grow. You need to add 100 feet to it."
Godfrey’s team quickly made the changes Roberts suggested, but this was October 2022. They were approaching the submission deadline and needed Roberts’ steel structure cost estimates.
“We're in Kickapoo State Park, in Illinois, training an ENR (Environmental and Natural Resources) team early in the morning, and my phone rings, and it's Rob Roberts. Rob says, ‘Lex, what you're trying to do is commendable, and we're going to donate the steel building.’
“At that point, we were able to have all of the final paperwork that we needed to submit our grant minus the cost of the steel structure of the building,” says Godfrey.
By November 2022, the state of Idaho had funded Rigby’s $5.3 million grant.
The Rigby ag department will now occupy both shops and an additional classroom in the technology building. Image by Paige Nelson.
Expanded opportunities
On Feb. 19, 2025, the Rigby FFA officers hosted an open house and tours of the brand-new Rigby CTE building just south of the high school. On March 10, the CTE building hosted its first certified nursing assistant (CNA) robotics and automotive classes. Without too much fanfare but with much anticipation, the ag department expanded into a coveted new welding shop and an additional classroom.
The extra space will allow a fourth teacher, Mr. Davis, to help carry the load and expand into additional areas like internal mechanics and advanced fabrication.
Chase Crook, assistant principal over CTE, says many of Rigby’s CTE programs are busting out the seams, from ag and automotive to drafting to cyber security – the need for space is great.
“Welding is a huge program that we have [at Rigby] and not enough space. We're having students double or triple up onto a welding device sometimes. And lots of kids requesting to be in there that we don't have space for. We're adding 12 to 16 extra welding spots there just to expand that program,” says Crook.
The ag program has been growing for years, and the teachers have had to accommodate it.
“Between the four of us, we have between 600 and 700 students that come from the main building. Some of them come six hours a day, and we wonder if they even have an English class,” jokes Hale. “It's almost one-third of the school, and this is a big school,” he adds.
Rigby FFA chapter officers pose in front of their new hallway, classroom and welding shop within the ag building. Pictured from left to right are Kendyl McNeill, strengthening ag vice president; Kayda Hickman, president; and Brayden Hammer, personal growth committee chair. Image by Paige Nelson.
It's an agriculture thing
It is no coincidence that a third of a 6A-sized school attends at least one class in the ag department. The ag teachers describe the feeling within their halls as a culture that they cultivate day in and day out. Because of that culture, the ag department needed to stay put in the technology building.
Rigby FFA Chapter President Kayda Hickman says everyone already calls it the ag building, and it is a safe place because it is different.
“When you come out to the ag building, you know that there's a place for you. You know that people are going to stand up for you, and a lot of the shenanigans that go on in the main building don't happen in the ag building because we have discipline. As a freshman, I was scared to death because the main building is huge, but I knew that if I came to the ag building, the advisers were going to help me, and I knew that I'd have people who would be there to support me,” describes Hickman.
Hickman’s experience isn’t unique to her. It’s a story that’s told over and over, and it’s because the ag teachers have designed it that way.
“The way that I teach is I look at all of these children and want them to have the experience that I want my kids to have, and if I treat other people's children as if they're my own, they're treated right and fair and their opportunity and their future, their ability to see and respond properly to the challenges and opportunities in front of them are greater,” says Godfrey.
Rigby has a new CTE building. It exists thanks to the collaboration of many community stakeholders and the ag teachers in the ag department, but the ag department will never live within its walls, and that is precisely how they want it.
