05/16/2024
On Tuesday we were lucky enough to have the Orrick Elementary 4th grade class out to Ray County Stone. We wanted to use this opportunity to show the students some of the careers that are available and explain the many steps it takes to make the aggregates that are needed to build and maintain our communities.
To start the field trip, we handed out a matching game that explained the many careers provided by a rock quarry. The Missouri Limestone Producers Association website does such a great job of providing kid-friendly, engaging material, and S&S Printing in Oak Grove, MO did a wonderful job at taking this information and creating booklets for the kids to use.
We used our aerial photos provided by Carter's Monuments in Richmond Mo to explain the different areas of the rock quarry that the class would be seeing, such as overburden, ledges, pits, stock piles, scale houses, heavy machinery, etc.
The kids were then able to safely observe from a distance a few of the steps that go into processing aggregates such as drilling, hauling rock to the crusher, washing rock, conveying the rock to stockpiles, trucking rock to the scales, and invoicing customers. We helped explain that each step can be it's own career and that those careers can include heavy equipment operators, dispatchers, program techs, mechanics, drillers, blasters, etc.
We ended the day providing a lunch and a few more fun activities from the MLPA website.
Thank you Orrick Elementary for the chance to showcase our business to this young generation!