Marshall County Crossroads is coordinating a ground breaking ceremony for Riverside Commons apartments in Plymouth tomorrow, November 2, 2021 at 10:30am. The ceremony will be at the site at the corner of Baker Street and Richter Road on the east side of Plymouth. Marty Oosterbahn will speak for Marshall County Crossroads. Mayor Senter will speak for the City of Plymouth and Kevin L. Berger will speak for Culver Sand Hill Farm LLC and Easterday Construction Co., Inc.
We’re hoping for a good event to kick this project off. This is just for the Plymouth portion of the project which consists of 40 units. We will have a separate ground breaking ceremony next Spring for the second part of this development, consisting of an additional 8 units in LaPaz.
Actual construction should begin quickly with erosion control and earthwork. The first units should be open within 18 months.
Easterday Construction lost another friend earlier this month. Hobart (Hobie) Martin passed away September 5th. You can read his (Impressive!) obituary here.
We met Hobie through is connection to the Veterans Memorial at Fletcher Cemetery. That connection was through his son, Architect Brent Martin, who we have worked with extensively on many projects. When I first met him, I said, “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Martin.”, to which he replied, “If we’re going to work together we should be friends. Call me Hobie!” I definitely enjoyed our time working together.
In 2014 we were contracted to move the existing memorial stone to a new location on a plaza created for it. The stone has the names of veterans carved into it and sadly was running out of space. You can find several posts about working on this project here.
Bob Cooper (ECC) and Tom Lenker placing the monument stone
Knowing this historic significance of the piece made the project a bit daunting. We ended up working with Tom Lenker to make this move as he was always one of the equipment operators I trusted most. (When someone would ask about him, I told them I would trust him to scratch an itch on my right shoulder blade with an excavator tooth without a second thought.)
While I didn’t see Hobie often after that project, I did keep track of him through Brent. He lived a long and good life and in the end, was able to pass in his home with his family there.
Memorial Day services at the new monument plaza, 2015.
The project goal was to have the project complete by Memorial Day. Several of us from Easterday Construction attended the dedication service and the Memorial Day Service that year. I stopped to check on it when I went to Hobie’s visitation and the plaza is a great tribute to his community service.
A few years ago we posted pictures of this pool surround fence we saw in Wabash, IN. We liked it and decided to rework it as dumpster surrounds at Sand Hill Farm. Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, you know… We have used this for the dumpster surround for Sand Hill Farm Apartments and then again at The Paddocks.
The original stained cedar would have been a little bit of overkill and a little too much to maintain for dumpster surrounds, so we reworked the basic design to frame it with treated lumber. We maintained the galvanized corrugated metal panels for the main screen.
Dumpster Surround at The Paddocks
In the original, as a pool surround, more care was needed for details to assure no sharp edges were exposed to the bare skin you would find around a pool. Trash dumpsters are a little more forgiving and we were mostly interested in the exterior look. We also knew that maintenance would be an issue, so we looked at reducing areas to collect debris and ways of making it easier to clean, like providing space beneath the panels.
Depending on how the wood weathers, we may or may not go back and stain the treated lumber next year. For now, it is a clean look and creates a more pleasing screen than the chain link and vinyl ribbon you see so often. The green of the treated lumber actually goes with the greens used on the buildings and the overall farm theme.
Easterday Construction lost another good friend last week. Roger Umbaugh passed away Thursday evening, August 5th. (Obituary here.) We completed several projects for Roger at his home on 12th Road, including a re-siding project with Mary Ellen Rudisell. That was one of those projects that could have become contentious as it seemed that every day we would find a new underlying problem that we couldn’t foresee. The home was a RT house that Roger’s father had constructed and that designer/builder had a reputation that his homes were guaranteed to leak. It was a cool home though! Roger and Carol took the odd construction discoveries and issues in stride.
Personally, I really became friends with Roger when we were tapped to start the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) in 2007. Roger was asked to do this by Kevin Overmyer as a representative of Marshall County. I represented the town of Culver. At first meeting of the group, Roger forgot to invite me! He followed up, apologized, and we went out to dinner with our wives, Carol & Becky, so he could bring me up to speed. That went so well and we all got along so well, that it became a regular thing. We rarely went more than a month without a night out together and one year we vacationed with them at their cabin in Pagosa Springs, CO.
Roger and I shared a sense of pragmatism and impatience that fortunately wasn’t turned against each other too often. (No relationship is perfect, ha!) We both were officers for MCEDC nearly our whole tenure there. For better or worse, we went through 4 executive directors. In the end, the issues caused by the last one under our tenure became too stressful for Roger and he had to step down. I had stepped down a couple months prior to that and Roger said that played into his decision as it wasn’t as much fun without us there together.
Marshall County Philanthropy Center Roger helped make this building possible.
Roger left a legacy at MCEDC as a founding member, but at times that legacy was as much in his support role as when he was out in front. He was my vice chair when I chaired the organization. When I wanted to gather the communities together to foster better understanding and cooperation, he worked behind the scenes to help me. That became the quarterly County Development for the Future (CDFF) meetings, which made Culver Stellar designation and Marshall County Stellar designation possible. I don’t know that I could have made those county meetings happen without his help. He was also the one that made the New Market Tax Credit project happen. Without him, the financing of the pool and the new building for the Marshall County Community Foundation (MCCF) would never have happened. It was his knowledge and contacts with the State that made it viable. These are just a couple of the things that I was closely tied with and can relate. I know there are many others. But Roger wasn’t one to want credit. He was just happy to see the groups he supported succeed.
We remained friends after MCEDC, kabitzing from the sidelines. We also served on the MCCF Investment Committee together, so our civic service together continued to the end. We continued to have nights out together though the last couple of years they were fewer due to Covid and Roger’s health issues. Both of these fueled his impatience. He never liked dealing with things he couldn’t affect!
Thanks for all the great times, wonderful support and unending wisdom, Roger!
Julie did a great job decking out the front entrance for this Fall. Thanks Julie! The mums are looking great and the other decorations came together nicely.
We’re generally not big Fall People around here. Not that there’s anything particular wrong with Fall, it’s just that it’s a precursor to that cold season we don’t like. If we could take Fall straight through until Spring, we’d be Fall fans!
We’re signed up for the Scarecrow contest too. Julie did Corky’s Crow Bar for a few years ago and won first place for us. Let’s see how creative she is this year…
