SGS receives special gift

The Stockton Grade School was gifted with a surprise donation of two sets of handmade cedar Lincoln Logs and two sets of fraction blocks from 87-year-old John Will of Halstead, Kansas on Thursday, January 13th.

Carpenter and woodworker John Will retired from his business, John Will Construction, when he turned 65 in 2000 after building over 50 houses throughout his career in Halstead, along with 20 more houses around that area. And that’s not to mention the many remodeling jobs of banks and other businesses he did along the way!

John has his own saw mill where he now spends a lot of his time, saying it keeps him busy and off of the recliner. After his retirement he built a lot of cedar chests and other small furniture, but when that got to be too much for him to handle, he turned his attention to making Lincoln Logs and building blocks about six years ago. That is when he got the idea to make them for the schools around his area.

John begins with logs chopped down from cedar trees in the local area, some trees which he has even chopped himself. Then he dries the wood before cutting them into strips to start fashioning the Lincoln Logs or the blocks. He works from the pile of wood he has dried at that specific time and doesn’t quit until all the wood has been utilized. Sometimes it takes him up to six weeks to get them all assembled, and other times it takes longer depending on the wood pile. John said, “I make the number of sets the pile gives me.”

During the past six years, John thinks he has made over 700 sets. The first schools to receive his wooden gifts were in Halstead and Wichita. Now when he gets a bunch made up, he loads them up and takes off to different schools throughout the state. John is a low key guy, so he never calls before he stops in at a school. He just travels around and doesn’t go back home until all of the logs and blocks have been given away. John said, “I enjoy making them and giving them to the schools. I think it makes them happy since kids need something to get their hands on.”

So just a week or so ago he headed towards Russell and then looked at the map and went from one town to another until he had given out the 20 sets he had made from his last pile of cedar. And lucky for Stockton, he dropped by the Stockton Grade School! John gives the sets according to how many first-grade classes the school has, so Stockton received two sets of the logs as well as two sets of blocks.

John stated, “Kids need something besides a screen to look at and getting their hands on these pieces of wood to make things is a good deal. In fact, the kids are learning the concept of fractions by just playing and using their imagination to make something out of them.”

John wants nothing in return for his generous spirit because he does it mainly to keep busy. But he did say one teacher gave him a great big hug when he stopped in at Dighton. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he laughed.