Stone Equipment’s Mud Buggy has proven its ability to move mud, gravel and dirt on the jobsite, but a recent appearance at an art festival required a different kind of move. Six Mud Buggies took center stage in a choreographed dance performance that demonstrated the maneuverability of the equipment. Thomas Warfield, a choreographer who has worked with the Opera Theatre of Rochester, the New York City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, directed both dancers and Mud Buggy operators in the event.
The performance was the finale of the Annual Rochester ARTWalk Alive, which features a variety of live art performances and demonstrations along several blocks of Rochester, New York, streets.
– Lauren Barrera
Fifty years of Bobcat
To celebrate the company’s golden anniversary, Bobcat has stepped back in time. “Bobcat: Fifty Years of Opportunity – 1958-2008,” a special edition coffee table book, traces the company’s roots from the introduction of the first compact loader to present day.
Two versions of the book, authored by Marty Padgett and published by Motorbooks International, are available: a five-chapter bookstore version, which details the company’s history, and an 11-chapter special edition available only through Bobcat, providing more in-depth information. “We realized there was more of interest to Bobcat dealers, employees, friends, neighbors and Bobcat customers who are a part of the history,” says Leroy Anderson, marketing communications manager and Bobcat historian. “So we added six more chapters full of anecdotes and advertising history that paint an even richer picture of the unique Bobcat culture.”
The book contains a complete Bobcat product index and interviews with key individuals, including loader inventors Cyril and Louis Keller. Many of the accounts are in print for the first time.
“Bobcat: Fifty Years of Opportunity – 1958-2008” can be purchased at Bobcat dealerships or at www.bobcatstore.com.
– Amy Materson
Word for Word
“Contractors are finishing earlier than planned, and they’re either going to the next project early or they’re running out of projects, and they want to know when we’ll have another one to bid on.”
– Jon Nance, North Carolina DOT’s director of field operations, to the Raleigh, North Carolina’s News & Observer, about the effect the state’s extreme drought has on construction.
“This is an extremely large piece of construction equipment, and it’s not like hot-wiring a car and driving off with it. This took someone with extraordinary skills and abilities who knows how to drive it, start it, load it onto a trailer.”
– Neil Shultz of the Polk County, Iowa, Sheriff’s Office, to the Associated Press about the theft of a Komatsu excavator from a construction site in Des Moines.
“Construction continues to confound me. I don’t really know why we’re having so much growth.”
– Labor economist Evelina Tainer to the Seattle (Washington) Times about strong construction employment growth in the state.
