Mrs. Barbara DeYear and her flagman, "Big John" LaDue visited the West Carthage Tech Club on May 2, 2002. Mrs. DeYear is President of Independent Commercial Contractors Inc., the company that has cleared the site of the March 2 Carthage Fire. She described what her team of workers, assisted by trucks from the surrounding municipalities, did to accomplish their task ahead of schedule and under bid. The students had many questions for Barb and "Big John".

She told them how she had to keep track of the number of truckloads of rubble that left the site and where each truck was headed. She showed the students the Day Book, the record of day to day progress at the site. This includes the numbers of the trucks, the number of trips, destinations, and a series of pictures taken on site during the course of the day

Many of the questions the students asked had to do with the asbestos removal at the site, the victims who lost their possessions and the efforts made by the ICC workers to recover whatever they could for the people who had been through the fire. Mrs. DeYear pointed out pictures in the Day Book of fused tools, nearly unidentifiable machines and some items that were almost intact. The children marveled at the fact that no one was hurt in all of the time the ICC workers cleared the site.

"Big John", whose job it is to direct traffic on and off the site was also taking pictures of our meeting. He patiently explained his camera to the students and took multiple shots of the children, much to their delight.

We really thank them for their time and patience during the visit and, more importantly, for the wonderful job they and Independent Commercial Contractors Inc. have done for our village.