98 Pearce Road P. O. Box 1208

Mt. Olive, MS 39119

Issue Number 57 2nd Quarter 2012

PAVING THE WAY BY: BILL BLAIN

Congresshaspassedamultiyearextensionofthecurrenttransportationbill.Thiswillsecurecurrentfundingthrough2014.Thisisseenaspositiveforourindustryeventhoughwedidnotgetanincreaseinfunding.Also,ifanyofyouwatchedtheMissMississippipageanttheendofJune,yousawthatthemainsponsorwasagroupcalledDriveMS.ThisisagrassrootsorganizationformedtoinformthepublicofourMShighwaysandhowtheyaffectourlives.Tostartusthinkingaboutsafety,livability(convenience),andeconomicdevelopmentandhowthestateneedstoinvestadditionalfundsforhighwayconstructionandmaintenancetoachievetheseneeds.Everyonehasreallypulledtogethertoworkasateamthisyear,whichhasreallyhelpedinthesedowntimes.Let’sbecarefulaswegointoourbusytimeoftheyear.Wehavehadaverygoodsafetyrecordsofarthisyear,letskeepitgoing.

BLAIN BRIEFS

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“DID YOU KNOW?”

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A Baby Shower was held in April for Jeb Seal. Jeb and Betthany are the proud parents of a very cute little girl named Mary Megan. Jeb and his family now live in Lafayette, LA We miss you Jeb!

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In case you missed the Channel 16 news on April 18th or the article in the Natchez De-mocrat, here is a brief synopsis of our latest venture: Magnolia Frac Sand. The an-nouncement ceremony began with Governor Phil Bryant addressing a large crowd of people and reporters that had gathered on the bluff in Natchez overlooking the Missis-sippi River. The Blain Companies and Fores Frac Sand, a Canadian-based company, are joining forces to create 60 new jobs in Adams County through Magnolia Frac Sand. Lee Stevens followed the governor with an excellent explanation of the expansion plans and partnership with Fores: Magnolia will mine and process the sand; Fores will perform additional processing, market and sell it, for use in natural gas and oil production. We are excited about this new opportunity to increase our scope of business.

Governor Phil Bryant Lee Stevens

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Members of the Adams County Board of Supervisors, Natchez Development Authority, The Blain Companies, Fores Frac Sand and Governor Phil Bryant.

Back Row—from left to right: Michael Blain, Lee Stevens, and Andre Shmotev. Front Row—from left are: Bill Blain, Tony Little, and Jim Brewer.

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John Graham was recently featured in the MS Business Journal’s Top 40 over 40. John is a partner with Jernigan Copeland & Anderson, a Ridgeland law firm. He is a Sumrall native and the son of Steve and Barbara Graham. John is a member of the Uni-versity of Southern Mississippi Hall of Fame. He earned his de-gree in law from the University of Mississippi School of Law. He is an active member of the USM Alumni Association and creator of his neighborhood homeowners association. He is a member of Galloway United Methodist Church and actively involved with the Children and Family Team. We are proud of John’s accomplish-ments and wish him the very best.

Please welcome The Blain Companies newest Project Manager, Kevin Lewis. Kevin has been away for a while, but has returned and we are glad to have him on board. Kevin brings with him the experience, knowledge and expertise that it takes to be a successful Project Manager. We are so fortunate to work with such a fine person. The next time you see him, let him know how much he is appreciated!

Warren Bailey comes to us by way of Pitman Construc-tion out of Athens, GA. He grew up right across the river, in Vidalia, Louisiana; which is where he and his wife, Elicia and their three children make their home. Please let Warren know how happy we are to have him with us. Welcome Warren!!!

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This Camel tipped the scale at 580 pounds. Great Job Mike!!!

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2012 has been a busy year for Natchez, so far. These are some of the projects completed in the past few months . . .

201101— Adams County Water Works: located directly across from our office on Hwy 61. This project included site work and construction of parking.

201134— Vidalia Roadway Improvements Milling, asphalt overlay and adjust ment of drainage structures on ten Vidalia city streets, including Murray Dr and Cross St (left).

. . . and the construction of a new parking lot for the Vidalia Riverfront Complex.

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201136 — Louisiana Hwy 15 : We milled and overlaid a 1 mile section of LA Hwy 15 along the Mississippi River levee in Concordia Parish. This was done in conjunction with another project by the Corps of Engineers to raise the levee after the flooding of 2011. We also provided the clay gravel you see topping the levee.

201139 — Natchez City Streets : Consisted of the milling and overlay of portions of Bren-ham Ave (below), Liberty Rd (right), and Ratcliff St (bottom). It’s always a challenge when working in Natchez to avoid damaging the Crepe Myrtles.

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Two more projects com-pleted this quarter were 201137 — Vidalia Recrea-tion Complex: where we did some soil-cement mix-ing and built a parking lot and an entry road; also in Louisiana was 201142— Concordia Parish Airport which included drainage improvements, milling and overlay of hangar taxi-ways.

By the time this goes to print, we will have 3 new projects underway : 201208 — Hwy 61 Intersection, Woodville : mill & overlay; 201203 — Daisy St, Natchez : drainage im-provements; 201208 — Hwy 555, Natchez : mill & overlay Hwy 555 from Linda Lee Dr to Airport Rd

Projects that are currently in progress include 201041— Government Fleet Rd Exten-sion (right), which has dra- maticaly changed the local landscape, should be complete by the end of August; 201228 — Cathedral School (below) where we’re paving parking and drive through near the football field, and 201201— John R Junkin Turn Lane : (below right) con-structing a turn lane for a new nursing home.

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Bacco News

Business in North Mississippi is slow-Big jobs we had hoped to be doing by now are on hold and the longer time goes on I fear they may not happen this year if at all. Even with sales slow, there is always lots to do at a gravel pit. Dry min-ing in the river bottom-below the water table presents challenges at times-especially during the wet winter and rainy spring. This winter and spring our normally dependable 15 HP Dobbs pumps began losing ground on the water in the mining area, which causes problems when stripping and wash-ing. After checking for problems with our pumps and finding none, we brought our old Gorman Rupp 6” pump out of retirement to supplement the Dobbs pumps. We quickly realized that diesel prices of today make it much more costly to operate than in years past. A long term solution of a larger-50 HP Dobbs pump was decided the best way to solve the problem. The lar-ger pump will pump over 400 GPM more and at a lower operating cost. Ce-cil and Kenny Cutrer worked very hard to rework water lines and hoses. Weathers Electric and 4 County Electric made necessary changes to elec-tricity. The new pump was put in operation Monday, June 11th and is bring-ing the water level down. Cecil and Kenny along with Weathers Electric worked on another de-watering pump project-installing automatic mercury float on/off switches on the dewatering pump in the south pit. The switches turn the pump on or off depending on water level and are doing a very good job. With business slow we are washing 2-3 days per week and stripping the days we do not wash. The slow period has allowed us to get quite a lot of stripping done. Normal, every day jobs, continue too. Watering roads-(see picture of Anthony) and keeping equipment (even new) maintained-(see Cecil weld-ing). I hope business gets better soon and stays better for all of us. Be safe ya’ll Carlisle

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New 50 HP-8” dis-charge Dobbs pump dewatering mine area

Discharge pipe from 50 HP Dobbs pump with walkway access for water sampling

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Kenny Cutrer positions auto-matic controls for 15 HP Dobbs pump in south pit

Robert Sampson on excavator loads Jason Jewell in haul truck-hauling to wash plant

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Robert Sampson loads stripping on haul truck driven by Jason Jewell

Jason Jewell unloads stripping to build slope

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Robert Deanes spreads stripping dirt on slopes to reclaim mining area

Anthony Wright filling water truck to water roads

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ANNIVERSARIES (THESE EMPLOYEES HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED FIVE YEARS OR MORE)

WE HAD A TOTAL OF 474 YEARS

OF EMPLOYMENT THIS QUARTER!!!

APRIL

Dwayne Baker - 11 Larry Claiborne - 6

Thomas Crawford Jr. - 24 Terry Ellis - 5

Keith Gatlin - 7 Onesimus Magee - 30 Robert Robertson - 10 Robert Sampson - 13

Greg Sullivan - 7

MAY

Bronson Brady - 5 Jason Brewer - 10 Stephen Davis - 5 William Davis - 6 Willie Devaul - 6

Frankie Earls - 13 Scott Flynt - 33

Walter Gatlin -10 Steve Graham - 41 Graham Long - 11 Lee Stevens - 25

Allen Winston - 15

Thisquarterwehave4employ‐eeswith30yearsormore!!!!OnesimusMagee‐33ScottFlynt‐33SteveGraham‐41CarlisleCampbell‐37Also,theseemployeeshadatleast20yearsofemployment:ThomasCrawford—24LeeStevens—25MichaelBlain‐28RickyHerrin‐20LeroyKing‐21

June Michael Blain - 28

Carlisle Campbell - 37 Robert Cheatham - 9

John Cole - 7 Robert Deanes - 6

Nancy Eidt - 6 Ricky Herrin - 20 Leroy King - 21

Eddie McNair Jr. - 18 James Moss - 10 Andra Poole - 9

Earl Washington - 5 Raymond White - 5