OOLOGAH, Okla. -- Two Oologah-Talala students are taking security measures into their own hands by building locks for classroom doors.
Oologah-Talala high school principal Kevin Hogue approached Billy Durham and Hunter Gorry and asked them to create something to make the school safer.
"We originally started in our AG chapter, and then we started working on them after school, or any free time we had we were up here at the school working," said Hunter Gorry, senior at Oologah-Talala high school.
The two seniors are talented welders, and created an idea for steel plate locks on school doors.
"The first one took us about two weeks I want to say, second one took about another two weeks once we decided that we need the design, third one took a couple months, like three or four months," said Billy Durham, senior at Oologah-Talala high school.
There are three designs to cover the different types of doors at the high school, and they really work.
"It’s three pieces of flat steel and measurements all depend, and we have another one that’s made out of a piece of one inch tubing and flat steel also," said Gorry.
These locks have already become such a huge hit, that other schools in the area reached out to buy some to protect their students as well.
"Kind of makes me feel warm because I’m like, well I’m helping protect them if there’s ever a school intruder," said Durham.
Principal Hogue says this saves the school hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars on security equipment. Plus, Billy and Hunter are proud they're helping their fellow classmates stay safe.
"Especially with all these mass shootings and stuff, so just giving a little bit of help back to these schools and stuff is worth it," said Gorry.
They've already made more than 40 locks for the high school, and they're now working on locks for the elementary schools.
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