Beatrice Public Schools is bringing a new vocational field to the elementary schools each month during the school year. Bill A. of Beatrice Ready Mixed is teaching a Concrete 101 Introduction course to all three of Beatrice’s public schools. The course will be provided to 2nd-5th grade students during their after school program.

The program briefly covers how Beatrice Concrete manufactures the product, what raw materials are included, and a hands-on truck demonstration for all the students. Tyler E. demonstrated the functions of a ready mix truck and fielded questions from the students.

Beatrice was proud to be able to be a part of this educational event.

NEBCO Ready Mixed Concrete Companies recently collaborated on a street paving job for a new development in Ashland. Ready Mixed Concrete, Husker Concrete and Beatrice Ready Mixed plants worked together to produce 860 cubic yards of concrete in 5 hours for the project.

The project required a great deal of communicating between the companies to ensure that all the concrete was inside the job specifications, as well as coordinating with dispatch to ensure the correct amount of concrete was delivered for the job.

Dan Z. of Beatrice Ready Mixed competed in the 2018 NRMCA National Mixer Driver Championship at Gaylord National Resort near metro Washington, DC. After winning the Nebraska mixer driver championship, he was able to advance to the nationals and competed against a field of 87 drivers from across the United States.

The drivers took a written exam, did a walk around visual vehicle inspection, and a driving skills test. Some of the challenges in the test included a tennis ball drive-through challenge, parallel park challenge, on target challenge, scale box challenge and backing stop challenge. They also had a chute a hoop challenge, shooting a basketball into the chute to make a point. A break an egg challenge, swinging the chute over an egg and getting as close as possible without breaking it. A bowling challenge, where a bowling ball is attached to the final chute of a mixer truck, while the truck drives backwards and tries to knock down the pins in one pass. Reaction time was also tested with a computer program that records how quickly a driver reacts to the changes on a screen.

Dan finished outside the top 5 but had an great experience. Dan won the 2018 championship for Nebraska in June.

Overland Ready Mixed is moving it’s Geneva plant operations to Strang, NE. The new plant is erected, floors have been poured and the walls for the office are currently being framed. The next phase of the project is to erect the building around the plant.

Plans call for the project to be completed by November 30 and the plant should be operational by January 1, 2019. The Strang plant will feature a new dry batch plant that can handle 200 yards per hour. The Geneva 1995 Con-E-Co LoPro Plant will be refurbished and moved to Silver Creek to replace a 1976 manual batch plant.

The new plant used 1,500 tons of recycled crushed concrete for the base. The concrete was crushed by Constructors. Ayars & Ayars is the general contractor for the project.

Concrete Industries Nebraska City operates ready mixed concrete plants in Nebraska City, Syracuse, Auburn, Tecumseh and Falls City. In addition to delivering concrete to southeast Nebraska, southwest Iowa, Kansas and Missouri, CINC also offers concrete block, bagged products, aggregate and other building materials at the Nebraska City location. CINC has produced Large Retaining Wall Block with recycled concrete for years but recently began producing other precast products. The new endeavor has provided additional winter jobs allowing drivers to work through the winter season as well as an additional revenue source for the location.

The production process has been a lot of trial and error to perfect the mix and to find the best way to produce high quality products in an efficient manner. In addition to large retaining wall block, CINC is now producing parking curbs, splash blocks and pyramid blocks. A lot of the product is sold to lumberyards and hardware stores. The splash block is used by homeowners to improve control of downspout runoff while the pyramid block provides a simple and economical method for deck construction.

Using a portable hopper attached to a forklift, the crew can pour up to 17 splash block forms, 64 pyramid block and 15 curbs. The process takes about one day before the product is removed from the forms and the next batch is started.

The precast products are also sold at other NEBCO companies including U-MIX Products, Reimers Kaufman, Watkins, Kearney Crete & Block, and Christensen Concrete Products.

The construction of a new $25 million Waste Water Treatment Plant for the city of York, Nebraska located on 35 acre plot outside the city a few miles to the east began in March 22, 2017 and so far is on schedule for completion in the spring of 2019.

When this project for the city is completely finished they will have an aeration building that will be 156′ x 108′ in size and 17′ deep, enough to hold 2.1 million gallons. Along with the Aeration basin there will be the headworks building, a secondary treatment building, secondary clarifiers, a disinfection contact basin, a biosoilds holding tank and an operations building. Also, there are 2.6 acres of land on the western portion of the property that will have five reed bed areas that will be specially established to catch any possible leaching (from sludge) so the material can be taken back to the disinfection basin. The reeds will consume the sludge in a natural, biological way.

Approximately 7,000 cubic yards of concrete will be used for the building structures. With 75% of the Concrete in place, Overland Ready Mix in York has provided Hawkin’s Construction, who is doing all the work on this project, with 7,100 cubic yards of concrete and approximately 1,667 tons of fill sand.

This new Treatment Plant should give the City of York a minimum of 50 years and can easily be expanded to 100 years with upgrades.

The Beatrice Fire & Rescue team conducted a training session at the Beatrice Ready Mixed Plant on Jan. 9, 2018 bringing in firefighters and EMT’s from all 3 shifts in order to have everyone trained in case of an emergency. The main focus of the exercise was to educate the emergency personnel on the confined spaces Beatrice Concrete employees could potentially be working in. Fire & Rescue personnel evaluated and came up with the best possible way to evacuate injured employees from the central mixer, and overhead bin spaces.

Beatrice Concrete was thankful for their willingness to assist in setting up this training exercise that may save valuable time should we ever need the assistance of Beatrice Fire & Rescue at the plant facility.

According to a report from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (www.ccohs.ca), many workers are injured and killed each year while working in confined spaces. An estimated 60% of the fatalities have been among the would-be rescuers.

The words “Never Forget” are often used around Veteren’s Day referring to the men and women who have served in the U.S. Military.  For Concrete Industries – Nebraska City Ready Mixed Driver Rick W. and his Fiancé and Gold Star mother, Noala F. it has become an everyday mission of theirs to honor the fallen by volunteering their time to the “Remembering Our Fallen” traveling tribute to ensure those who died in the war against terror in both Iraq and Afghanistan are never forgetten.

After nearly a decade of providing free honor flights for veterans to visit the nation’s war memorials in Washington, Bill and Evonne Williams came up with the idea to create a traveling tribute to all of the fallen soldiers since 9/11. All the pieces for the traveling tribute were coming together when the group realized they were going to need a DOT license to transport the tribute towers. Noala, who became acquainted with Bill and Evonne Williams while speaking at a veteran’s event about her son who died in 2007, jumped at the opportunity to suggest Rick had a CDL. Rick gratefully accepted the opportunity to help.

The “Remembering Our Fallen” outdoor display now travels state to state to ensure the memories of these lives are never forgotten. The display consists of 27 towers with 3 panels on each tower which are double sided and feature nearly 5,000 soldiers.

The new outdoor display was unveiled at Pinnacle Bank Arena before being taken to a county fair in Minnesota. Rick then drove it to the Nebraska State Fair before it was sent off to Washington DC for a national unveiling at the National Mall. Rick then took the display to Hampton, Va., Charlotte, N.C., and Allentown, Pa. In November, Rick will help drive the truck and trailer in the New York City Veterans Day Parade.

While describing a moment at a recent stop where a visitor stopped by the tribute every day and stood speechless, Rick says that it is an honor to help with the display, noting the range of emotions you experience from the visitors and being there for them. “There are a ton of emotions involved, it puts a big smile on one person’s face and makes the next person cry,” Rick says.

“Our eternal hope is that we honor the memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice and to bring comfort,” said Noala, who helps facilitate the tribute as it travels across the country. “I tell people my son is on the wall, and when you look at it, to me he remains alive. He remains a viable part of my life and other people’s lives when they see these pictures.”

To help transport the display Rick devotes all of his vacation time to the “Remembering Our Fallen” project. In total, Rick has logged 2,500 miles driving and 9,200 flying miles to move the display from one location to the next.

Costco will be opening the doors to their new 156,000 square-foot Lincoln store in October and NEBCO Companies will have played a large roll in the construction process.

The Washington based warehouse retailer is building their newest location in South Lincoln at 16th Street and Pine Lake Road.  Construction for the new store included the involvement of Ready Mixed Concrete, Reimers Kaufman, U-MIX Products, Concrete Industries, Constructors, Trafcon and Beatrice Sand & Gravel.

Ready Mixed Concrete is supplying a total of 6,000 CY of concrete for the project including 3,000 CY for the interior of the building and 2,800 CY for the rest of the project, including footings and other placements.  Lottman Carpenter out of Diller, NE is the Concrete Contractor for the project.

Constructors involvement includes all of the offsite paving while Trafcon handles the traffic control and offsite pavement marking.  Constructors is also doing the onsite asphalt drives and parking lot as well as the crushed rock base course, which was supplied by Beatrice Sand & Gravel’s Sietz Quarry.

Reimers Kaufman supplied 6,800 Standard Gray Units, 13,077 Standard and Rockface Colored Units from Northfield/Oldcastle, and 17,682 Quick Brik 4″ high units from Miller Material/Oldcastle.

U-MIX supplied 75 yards of bulk mortar and 125 yards of core-fill masonry grout.

Concrete Industries supplied approximately 3,000 LN FT of reinforced concrete pipe from 15” diameter through 48” diameter for storm water drainage.  Concrete Industries also supplied 7 manholes totaling approximately 75 VF for sanitary sewer.

The Nebraska Trucking Association announced the winners of the 2017 Nebraska Truck Driving Championship, held June 2-3 in Grand Island.  Dan Z. of Beatrice Ready Mixed earned 2nd place in the Mixer truck competition.  In addition to Dan, NEBCO was represented by two other drivers.  This annual event offers Nebraska’s best professional truck drivers a chance to demonstrate knowledge, talent and skills in a competition highlighting what it takes to be a safe driver on today’s streets and highways.  102 drivers participated in this year’s championship in eleven classes.  Additional awards were presented based upon scores in: written examination, personal interview, pre-trip inspection and driving test.  Nebraska Trucking and the Championships have a long tradition of a positive working relationship with the Nebraska State Patrol Carrier Enforcement troopers.  Participants were competing for first place which included an all expense trip to Florida to compete at the national championships.