Et cetera : NCCC’s Maple 3 to Cross the Missouri One Last Time

Brittney Springer working on the West Branch School, the first building the team completed.

By: Brittney Springer and Chloe Reese

Maple 3 concludes their second round project on June 30, 2011 in Pawnee City, NE. The team has been there since May 19, doing a variety of restoration tasks at the Pawnee City Historical Society and Museum.

The team’s main project was to completely scrape, caulk, and repaint four of the historical buildings at the society. The team ended up completing five, and also oiled the log cabin on site. Along with this, they cleaned the Butler House, Curtis House, the Irene LeSeour Resource Center, Beyreis Building, and all the machinery in the Wick, North and South Astro buildings, and Caswell Building.

A highlight of this museum is that they house the barn of Dan Whitley, more commonly known as Larry the Cable Guy. The team was able to clean the barn, and show a variety of tourists where he played as a child. The museum also houses a Model T Ford and a Dodge 1924 automobile, which the team was fortunate enough to wash and take rides in. Other tasks on this project included: a new roof on the Old Paper Building, 5 gardens weeded, merry-go-round and other signs repainted and repaired, siding replaced on the Benz Building, installed three outhouses, and cleared one vacant lot across the road.

The project was a success, with the team completing all of their assigned work and then some. They painted five building instead of four, helped put up and take down approximately 420 flags twice (for Memorial Day and Flag Day), and helped move 9,000 books into the town’s new library.

The team is all set to move to their third round project, trail maintenance on Isle Royale, located in the Northwest corner of Lake Superior. The team will take what they learned from each other in Pawnee City to face the new challenges on the road ahead.