Watco Supply Chain Services is a key partner in a newly-opened $6.8 million transload shipping hub site in Kansas that is a staging area for wind turbine components, and has wasted no time in filling acreage with those components.

It’s a success story, said Commercial Manager Casey Harbour, for many reasons.

“This is not only an incredible collaboration for all aspects of Watco — from rail, supply chain, everyone — it’s a project that illustrates the atmo-sphere that Mr. Webb created in our company,” Harbour said. “It’s all about creating a successful solution for our Customers.”

“And it’s a huge win for Watco as a whole.”The facility, just outside Great Bend, Kansas, is

an ideal location for wind turbine storage, as it’s near several developmental sites for future proj-ects. And the timing, as renewable energy be-comes a focus across the U.S., is perfect, Harbour

said.“It’s an industry that’s really taken off over the

past three to five years,” he said.Watco’s relationships within the industry and its

ability to serve in multiple facets, from transporta-tion provider to mechanical inspections to repair work on railcar fleets, were considerations in land-ing the job.

“As a company, we were approached through various contacts we have and presented with the question as to whether we thought we could start our own wind distribution center,” Harbour said. “We had already begun working on an aggregate facility with KDOT and Sherwood Construction,” Harbour said. “We had additional land around it, and were presented with the opportunity to do wind components, to take advantage of safe har-boring for PTC tax credits.”

Other partners include Fuller Industries, Great Bend Chamber of Commerce, the State of Kansas, and the City of Great Bend.

After conversations with wind component man-ufacturers, in early January Watco was awarded the first project with a wind company.

“From there, it’s snowballed into more,” Harbour said.

Paul Williams, on the Supply Chain side, Opera-tions Manager, Railroad Logistics, said the project has filled about 24 acres as of the end of February, and Watco has just leased an additional 30.

“We have around 45,000 square feet of indoor storage and it will be full this month,” Williams said. “We have 204 tower sections on the ground,

35 hubs, 105 blades, and we’re expecting another 300 tower sections in April.”

Those components have been received via truck and rail, then have been offloaded and placed on fixtures on the ground where they will remain for a few months or years of storage until they’re as-signed to a wind farm.

Then, Watco will reload them to truck or rail for delivery to those farms.

“It spills over into other industries,” Harbour noted. “You have to have cranes to lift them, a qualified team, and it utilizes both the trucking industry and rail industry.”

Meanwhile, Watco is continuing to be awarded more projects.

Harbour credits Williams and Barth West for their work on the project.

“They’ve taken the ball and run with it,” he said. “I’m just here to support them any way I can. They have the expertise and the relationships to make this thing go.”

Williams said it was “a real team effort.”“I don’t think either one of us could have done it

without the other,” he said. “And it’s an extremely big deal; for Supply Chain, we have almost made our complete plan for the entire year just in Janu-ary and February.”

In order to get ready for the arrival of the com-ponents the city launched an awareness campaign to notify residents and to let them know that there would be an impact on local roads and railroad crossings.

- Andra Bryan Stefanoni, Contributing Writer

The newsletter for Watco Companies March 2017, Volume 18, Issue 3

Wind energy blows big businessto Great Bend Transload Facility

The first of many wind components began arriving in late January and have continued at a rapid pace since.

There are currently 204 tower sections, 35 hubs, and 105 blades, ground at the Great Bend Transload facility.

A total of 24 acres were being used to store the wind components and Watco just leased an ad-ditional 30 acres.

Hubs and nacelles for the wind turbines are stored at the Great Bend Kansas, transload facility.

Larry Jensen wears a lot of hats in his off-time, from gardener to woodworker to traveler. So it figures that on the job, he’s worn a lot of hats, too.

Jensen, now 60, has been in the same posi-tion at Watco since he came on board March 1, 2007, but throughout his 40-year career in the railroad industry, he’s done it all. He retires this month as a senior vice president and chief mechanical officer.

Jensen started that career as a fireman/oiler in the steam engine days in North Platte, Ne-braska, where the locomotive shop there held 68 locomotives indoors and Bailey Yard — the world’s largest classification yard — saw 120 trains a day.

By 1984, he had become an electrician. Furloughed when the Union Pacific and the Missouri Pacific merged, he headed to Omaha, where he landed a job as a lineman for the communications department with the UP.

In 1986, he started his shortline career with Kyle Railways, and in the years that followed, he spent 10 years in Arizona on railroads that served the copper mines, some time on the Kiamichi Railroad in Hugo, Oklahoma, and in Paris, Texas, where he was CMO and the direc-tor of locomotives for States Rail.

“I’ve been general manager, director, super-intendent — I’ve worn a lot of hats over the years,” he said.

He noted that Watco’s fleet, which is ap-proaching 470 locomotives, includes locomo-tives that he was on when they were brand new.

“They have an average life cycle of 100 years — it’s very important to take care of them,” he said.

Jensen was attracted to Watco, he said, because he wanted to become part of a com-pany that was looking for growth, wanted to do things the right way, and focused on the Customer service side of things.

He counts among his accomplishments help-ing Watco to standardize locomotive care.

“When I came here, there wasn’t much

rhyme or reason to it — everyone did it a bit different,” he said.

Jensen put to-gether an extensive maintenance pro-gram that included monitoring those assets using inter-nal technology an a portal system — a tool that every-one uses now.

Today, Watco can track inventory and maintenance and has an online failure reporting process that is unique among short line companies.

When he arrived, locomotive availability was in the lower 80 percent, meaning that 20 percent were in need of repair. Now, Watco is the lower to mid-90 percent, a rank it’s held for the past eight years.

He is looking forward in retirement to spending more time with his family, though, which includes two daughters, three step-daughters, eight grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, along with gardening, wood-working, and traveling with his wife, Denise, in their camper.

“In railroading, I’ve been all over the coun-try, and I’ve been to Canada, Nova Scotia,” he said. “We want to go back to those places and dig deeper into the history of it.”

But it’s difficult to walk away from the industry, he said. The internal workings of his department at Watco is what he’ll miss the most in retirement.

“You build relationships with a lot of people, and I’ll miss feeling like part of a team,” he said. “You just hope the legacy you leave behind sticks. I think for the most part, what me and my team accomplished was good and I think it will last. That’s what I hope, anyway.”

- Andra Bryan Stefanoni, Contributing Writer

2 • The Dispatch • March 2017

Editor’s note: Last month we kicked off a new feature in The Dispatch and on our social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linke-dIn). #WatcoMoves will feature a product that Watco transports on its destination to the end user.

Product: Core componentsUsed for: Tuff ShedsLocation: Watco Terminal & Port Services, St. Louis

If Spring Fever has you ready get out in your yard and install a garden shed, or head to the lake and erect a getaway cabin, thank the team at Watco Ter-minal & Port Services, under the direction of Ryan Krull in St. Louis.

The team hauls core components used to build Tuff Sheds: steel, siding, roofing, flooring panels, trim, and occasionally lumber.

Tuff Sheds is a privately-held company headquar-tered in Denver, Colorado, with 47 manufacturing plants across the nation. The company, founded much like Watco by one man in 1981, now fab-ricates and installs 75,000 structures each year, including sheds, barns, garages, and cabin shells — from a 10x12-footer for your lawnmower to a two-story, 3,000-square foot vacation property.

They keep about three weeks worth of inventory at 1,400 Home Depots, which send requests to the national purchasing department for more. Those requests are forwarded to Watco, which sends one to three trucks per week from St. Louis to each one of the participating stores.

“The way we operate, every building we build is custom designed by each customer, and everything is fabricated just a day or two before we install,” said Ben Grimes, vice president of production. “If one truck doesn’t get out on time, it could impact 10 customers not getting their install at the correct time, so tight turn-around is vital.”

“You definitely keep us in business,” Grimes said. “We rely on you.”

——To learn more about what #WatcoMoves, follow

us at Facebook/WatcoCompanies, on Twitter at @WatcoRail, Instagram @WatcoRail, and on Linke-dIn.

Have a suggestion for a product to be featured in #WatcoMoves? Email astefanoni@watcocompanies.com

#WatcoMoves Watco CMO retires after 40 years

Larry Jensen- retiring SVP and CMO

Team members who recently graduated from the TS&IC Leadership Training class in Wolfforth, Texas, were back row (l-r): Jordan Pallanes, LBWR; Adam York, TXN; Robby Rodriguez, LBWR; Jonathan Cunningham, LBWR; Robert Leeper, TXN; Blake Thomas, Loving, NM; Michael Hernan-dez, TXN; Brandon Campbell, Loving, NM; and Daniel Rodriguez, LBWR. Front row (l-r): Johnny Ortegon, LBWR, and Joshuah Armel, GRNW.

The Dispatch • March 2017• 3

Supply Chain Services helps transport wooden "roads"

It pays to be diverse in transpor-tation and to build lasting relation-ships with Customers: A new joint project between Watco Terminal Port Services and Watco Supply Chain Services that is already producing activity and revenue has roots in a joint project Watco did back in 2013.

Commercial Manager Ryan Krull (WTPS) already had a rela-tionship with a Customer and had stayed in close contact. When the Customer had a need that Branch Manager Shane Morris (WSCS) could service, Krull put them in touch.

“They were looking to ship by rail, but the timing didn’t work out, and we saw the opportunity to bring the Supply Chain side in,” Krull said. “As a result, we’ve suc-cessfully been awarded multiple lanes.”

The product? Yak Mats — wood-en mats, each made of 6x6 and 8x8 square pieces of lumber bolted together, that can be connected to form a “roadway” of sorts on a large construction site such as a pipeline project.

Their purpose? To allow heavy machinery to more easily navigate across the terrain without damag-ing it or creating erosion.

“These mats can provide several miles worth of roads, in and out of sites, wherever they need big cranes and equipment to go,” Mor-ris said.

Yak Mat manufactures and sources them, and Watco provides the transportation. With their size, that’s a challenge.

“They are 18 feet long, 8 feet wide, and each unit weighs about 3,500 pounds,” Morris said.

But Watco is up to the challenge.“We load 17 of them onto a

truck at a time, and we’ve been loading in a range of 600 to 700

truckloads a month, averaging 30 a day,” he said. “They’re a vital part of the project — without the mats, they aren’t able to get the equip-ment to where it needs to be.”

All told, there were 200,000 mats to be moved from one project to another several states away.

The future plan Watco is work-ing on with the Customer is to establish a distribution network within our terminals and ports facilities to give them nationwide distribution.

“They’ll be stored and ready to load out at any time and at many different points,” Morris said.

“The interesting thing is, we do business with them on the Supply Chain side, the Terminal Port side, and we also service one of their plants from the rail side as well, so we touch them in three different aspects,” Krull added.

This wasn’t Watco’s first experi-ence at serving the Customer. In 2013, the WTPS traveled to Cherryvale, Kansas, daily from July through January 2014 to unload crane mats off of railcars, store them at the Cherryvale Me-chanical Shop, and deliver them by truckload to Independence, for what was then called Dixie Mats. The project then was a pipeline be-ing built from the midway point in Missouri to Cushing, Oklahoma.

All told, they unloaded 300 cars of 20,000 mats, inbound on the Kansas City Southern Railway to Pittsburg and then via the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad to Cherryvale.

At the time, Terminal Manager Adam Hanson predicted: “The ability to touch one Customer with several of our services helps build the relationships for future projects.”

- Andra Bryan StefanoniContributing Writer

Bogalusa was once called the Magic City due to how quickly the city was constructed, in just one short year, to house the workers at the local sawmill. There must still be some magic left as the team at the Bogalusa Bayou Rail-road (BBAY) has had zero reportable injuries since it's start-up two years ago.

The paper mill in the town of ap-proximately 13,400 people is still the town's largest employer and the BBAY Team of 12 serves three different divi-sions at the mill. There are two crews that work 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week serving the board mill, the craft mill, and the box plant.

BBAY General Manager Brit Son-nier said, "We have a lot of good team members that enjoy being here, we've built a strong safety culture. They take a lot of pride in what they do and take safety seriously."

As a reward for their focus on safety, the team received jackets with the BBAY logo and their names on them

along with a safety dinner for the entire team.

Art Capell, International Paper shipping mill manager said, "We're very pleased with their performance of having zero reportable injuries. That's a huge accomplishment."

- Tracie VanBecelaereManaging Editor

BBAY celebrates safety anniversary

Pictured above is the BBAY morning crew (l-r): Edward May, Cody Waller, Scott Davis, and Trainmaster Terence Snell. Not pictured are Andy Mitchell, Mike Miley, Jesse Bryant, Jeremy Lee, Marvin Quinn, Kenith Langsford, and Douglas Wayne Smith Jr.

The Blue Ridge Southern Railroad (BLU) was recently recognized by the Haywood County Commission for a Clean County for their efforts in sprucing up the depot in Caton, North Carolina. The committee recognized the BLU for their leadership role in beautification and in inspiring other businesses to participate, mainly due to the face lift they gave the depot.

"We are situated along two of the busiest streets in Canton, so there are a lot of eyes on us," said General Man-ager Darl Farris. " We are proud to be among the honorees, the BLU was the only business that received such an award, all other awards were given to individuals for their community contri-butions."

Before the BLU took over operations, the Canton depot was a fairly drab looking place that served more in func-tion than in form. Since then, the team has painted the roof and trim in their signature blue, cleaned up quite a bit of trash, planted some greenery, and gen-erally organized things so there is more curb appeal. Several BLU Team Mem-bers and their families have devoted their time and efforts to this cause and continue to do so.

Farris added, "We make it a part of our job briefings to discuss the impact our housekeeping has not only on our

safety, but also our image in the eyes of the communities we serve."

"I have to admit that my wife, Sally, probably the biggest fan of the BLU, is the brain child behind a lot of the mod-ifications made to the depot. She also organizes efforts to decorate the depot for some of the more popular holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, said Farris. "BLU team members and citi-zens alike, seem to really appreciate this extra effort to make the holidays more festive. Canton is a proud community with a rich heritage of hard working people at it’s core. Blue Ridge Southern team members fit right into that heri-tage and are proud to do it with a little flare that we are happy to share with the rest of the community. "

- Tracie VanBecelaereManaging Editor

BLU wins Community Pride Award

Pictured above are the beautiful fall decorations by Sally Farris, wife of BLU general manager Darl Farris.

4 • The Dispatch • March 2017

When the newly opened Lord’s Diner in Pittsburg, Kansas, asked businesses and organizations for volunteers to take turns serving guests one evening a month, there was no trouble getting a response from Watco.

Numerous team members offered to help.

The Lord’s Diner serves an eve-ning meal 365 nights a year, just as the original Lord’s Diner in Wichita, Kansas, does. Operated by the Catholic Diocese, it relies on volunteers to serve food, pour drinks, bus tables, and clean up.

Most of all, said Director Matt O’Malley, the volun-teers should make those who seek a meal at the diner feel welcome. The first start was referring to them as “guests,” and avoiding the term “soup kitchen.”

“We’re responding to Christ’s call to serve the hungry,” O’Malley said. “No questions asked, no proving that they are poor enough. Just come in, sit down, and be a part of our community. Enjoy dignity and feeling valued.”

The diner is attracting a diverse range of backgrounds. A few have been senior citizens or widows or widowers who find it hard to cook for just themselves at home, or who want the company of others when they eat. Some, includ-ing several families with children, “are well-aware they are working poor,” O’Malley said. Others have no home at all.

Those who volunteer also benefit, O’Malley noted.

Among them: Payroll Specialist

Cindy VanBecelaere, who took her 18-year-old daughter, Madison, who works part-time at Watco, and 16-year-old son, Tate, to serve in February.

“I felt like it was a great experience and was glad that my children were there with me. I would do it again,” VanBecelaere said.

Corporate Receptionist Charlene Huskey said she definitely plans to help again.

“I felt like I was placed in a position that allowed me to be my best,” said Huskey, who gave guests their tray

and silverware, told each person that Watco was happy to see them there to eat, and arranged for assistance from another volunteer if

they needed help carrying their tray or needed a cart.

Engineering Administrative Assistant Teri Kinyon worked in the kitchen, and noted that guests there were “all smiles and excited for the meal that they were receiving.”

“It was a very moving experience to be able to help the people in our Com-munity by giving of our time to make their lives better,” Kinyon said.

AR/Treasury Coordinator Nancy Dickey said her experience was espe-cially interesting.

“I made a connection with my first cousin who I have not seen in years,” she said. “He was a lot older than me and took a very different path in life. He did not know who I was until I introduced myself and then I sat down and talked about family he hadn’t seen in years. It felt good to help.”

Accounting Assistant Gwen Foster, who volunteered with her husband, also enjoyed the experience.

“It was heart touching to see the gratefulness in some eyes, and all were so nice,” she said. “But it was also sad to see the families that needed this, and the single older folks who were there alone.”

One older gentleman who had lost his wife was happy to have some place to go where there were other people, he told her.

“I was happy to listen to him. Some-times that is all we need, someone to listen,” she said. “I felt very humble afterwards, and so thankful for my blessings that I have — sometimes we all forget how much we have and need to be reminded.”

- Andra Bryan StefanoniContributing Writer

4 • The Dispatch • March 2017

WHY WATCO?

John McRae

Editor’s note: Starting last month in The Dispatch, we are sharing in print the #WhyWatco stories we’ve been sharing in video via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkdIn.

Team Member: John McRae Title: ConductorLocation: Texas & New Mexico Railway

John McRae, who joined the Watco Team a little over a year ago, says he appreciates Watco’s attention to safety and details.

“I’ve never felt rushed in any sort of way to get the job done if it ever compromises safety,” he said. “I always feel like I’m going to be able get home at the end of the day, safely, all fingers and toes attached.”

Located in the heart of the Perm-ian Basin, the Texas & New Mexico Railway (TXN) operates 111 miles of track in New Mexico and Texas. The TXN interchanges with Union Pacific at Monahans, Texas, and terminates at Lovington, New Mexico.

The railroad primarily handles oilfield commodities such as drilling mud and hydrochloric acid, frac sand, pipe, and petroleum products including crude oil. The TXN also ships iron and steel scrap.

McRae said he likes the ease of working with management at the TXN, and their response when he requests time to solve family issues or take vacation. And, he enjoys the family atmo-sphere.

“All of us here that work on this railroad are really close, really good friends,” he said, “and we all work really well together.”

“Watco’s been great!”Thanks, John, for sharing your #WhyWatco story!

To hear more #WhyWatco stories, follow us at Facebook/Wat-coCompanies, on Twitter at @WatcoRail, Instagram at WatcoR-ail, and on LinkedIn.

Pittsburg Team helps feed the hungry at the Lord's Diner

Watco Team Member Maddy VanBece-laere and her brother Tate helped serve guests at the Lord's Diner in Pittsburg, Kansas, the evening that Watco pro-vided volunteers.

CALENDAR CONTESTPhotographers get ready, Watco is now taking submissions

for the 2018 Calendar Contest. The calendar is always more interesting when many different seasons and locations are featured, so start snapping away now! Submissions must be received no later than September 1,

2017. The four-color high quality printing requires at least 300 dpi images at 100%. Send submissions or any questions to: tvan@watcocompanies.com with Calendar 2018 in the subject

line. Entries can be submitted by anyone, team members or not, but the photos must contain Watco properties as the subject matter.

“I felt very humble afterwards, and so thankful for my blessings"

Gwen FosterWatco Team Member

The Dispatch • March 2017• 5

BirthsMaisie Grace Linville

Jeff Linville and Kirsten Burke are proud to announce the birth of their daughter Maisie Grace.

Maisie was born on Febru-ary 1, 2017, and weighed 6 pounds, 2 ounces and was 19 inches long.

Jeff is the a senior interline accountant and works out of the Pittsburg, Kansas, support services center.

Congratulations to the following team members celebrating anniversaries this month.

1 Year: Maurice Acklin, Corbin Bach, John Bates, Myles Black, Robert Briley, Drew Brown, Scott Davis, Jacob Dow-num, Micheal Elias, Brandon Hasten, Je-sus Hernandez, Cody Hurlbutt, Anwar Jenkins, Chase Kinard, Joshua Knisley, Erick Lee, Delmer Lydick, Jennifer Mor-gan, Tomas Munoz, Howard Noland, Brandyn Popp, Jared Rahmn, Franklyn Roldan, Shannon Spone, Zackery Stew-art, Mason Villarreal, Kody Williams, Zachariah Wilson2 Years: William Akers, Zachery Barajas, Christopher Blackman, Gavin Burrell, Corey Corrick, Michael Dally, Chris-topher Foxhuber, Jeremiah Foy, Joely Gath, Natalie Hammond, Timothy Henderson, Lindsay Johnson, William King, Benjamin Langan, Andrew Mann, Alishia Mitchell, Austin Norris, Gerald Robinson, Shannon Rodgers, William Schwalm, Jason Smith3 Years: Tyler Brandenburger, Levi Clouse, Rasheda Combs, Christian Gomez, Raymond Hill, Phylaris Hop-kins, Homer Imel, Raymond Kammer, Nathan Kuykendall, James Moore, Jared Oliver, Kyle Poss, Victor Proslow, Billy Ridgell, Jared Rowland, Brindi Schoon, Jason Selzler, Jared Vandal, Grover Wise4 Years: Chance Adair, Taylor Albert, Bryant Boatman, Jerry Bruce, Rene Cantu, Richard Carter, Ryan Getsinger, Tyler Haycook, Michael Hayden, Jerry Morris, Bryan Payne, Colin Pinson, Jef-fery Robertson, Joselito Santiago, Cory Trowe, John Vance5 Years: Humza Abdul-Haqq, Anwar Aiken, Jacob Bagby, Andrew Boe, Jesse Crouse, Tammie Hambek, Brent Killian, Jeremy Madsen, Marc Massoglia, Timothy McLachlan, David Ontiveros, Brad Payne, Bradley Seideman, Donald Smith, Wesley Smith, Duane Stephen-son, Jeffery White6 Years: Cassie Bicknell, Taylor Carter, Evaristo Corona, Lori Cox, Richard Grant, Norman Jones, Daniel Paul, Nickolas Saunders, Franklin Waun, Kathleen Woods, Malcolm Young7 Years: James Blevins, Dustin Coester, Brett Golz, Kyle Hittesdorf, Anthony

Jones, Jesse Kolosik, Vicki Langford, Andrew McBride, Mickel Reeves, Shelly Rustad, Dean Schexnayder, Jason Stout, Angela Sylvia, Kenneth Thomas, Cesar Valentin, John Woods8 Years: Kenneth Cathell, Richard Chadwell, Skip Hastings, Jimmie Hug-gins, Timothy Largent, Gerardo Marti-nez, Bernardino Osorio Vargas, Johnny Rankin, John Rood, John Rowland, Dan Smith, Cecil Traylor, Steven Williams9 Years: Tina Castro, Sean Corr, Gwen Foster, Robert Gable, John Glover, James Maddux, Justin Moody, Brett Norris, Judson Rogers, Eva Rokezewski10 Years: Kelvin Banks, Bruce Brewer, Lyman Brown, Mandi Favalora, Patrick Holden, Larry Jensen, Esteban Lechuga, Paul Minnis, Danny Sims11 Years: Frederick Blondiau, Stephen Brath, Michael Colburn, Vincent Frazier, Marlin Garcia, Michael Rogers, Joe San-doval, Mark Tarr, Gary Westphal12 Years: Patti Audet, Adelita Barajas, Tyler Batley, Robert Boyd, Michael Galla, Eric Sabatucci13 Years: Kent Ainsworth, Brenda Caruthers, Charlene Huskey, Bartolome Marrero, Robert Martinez, Kevin Wat-kins14 Years: David Bullion, Frank Da-vis, Roger Easterling, Kenneth Lucht, George Spencer15 Years: Bernardo Cuevas, Walter Stromberg16 Years: Joshua Kramer, Brad Snow17 Years: Edward Garcia, Sonny Sweat-man18 Years: Sunil Bangari, Mark Krause, Ron Martin, John Smith, Robert Triebsch19 Years: Micheal Davis, Bridget Liden20 Years: Ronald Tapley21 Years: William Carroll22 Years: Fernando Almanza, Dick Fogliasso23 Years: Mark Green, Steven Morgan, Billy Morris24 Years: Mike Broussard, Herb Lamkin27 Years: Sherri Leport28 Years: James Crawford, Michael Howarth29 Years: Bryan Benson31 Years: Paul Oppel33 Years: Jim Herman36 Years: Steven Lang42 Years: Jerry Brown

Maisie Grace Linville

March

Kaisley Mae CliftonJosh and Ashley

Clifton are proud to announce the birth of their daughter Kaisley Mae, who was born on December 22, 2016.

Kaisley weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce, and was 17.5 inches long.

Josh is a member of the Blue Ridge South-ern Railroad Track Maintenance Team and has worked for the BLU since it's start-up in July of 2014. Kaisley Mae Clifton

Anniversaries

As the school year's end is quickly approaching, many family members of the Watco Team will be crossing stages across the continent (and ocean) to receive their diplomas.

Watco would like to acknowledge their hard work and show how proud we are of all graduates from our families by listing them in the May edition of The Dispatch.

If you would like to have your, or a graduate’s information listed, send in the information in the following format:• Graduates name and relationship to Watco team

member• Watco team member’s title and location• The school graduate is attending and location of that

school• If the graduate is receiving a degree from a college,

university or trade school list the graduate's degree type

An example would be: Billy Doe: Son of John Doe, locomotive mechanic in Oklahoma City, OK; graduating from Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK., with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting.

Email the information to: tvan@watcocompanies.com and add Dispatch-May Graduation in the subject line.

GraduationAnnouncements

St. Paddy's Day and every day-AVOID PINCH POINTS

315 W. Third StreetPittsburg, KS 66762www.watcocompanies.com

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The newsletter for Watco Companies

Houston volunteer mentors homeless men It's not easy to overcome an addiction to any-

thing, but the Open Door Mission in Houston has established a mentoring program that connects

its residents with volunteers who themselves have had issues and can understand the struggles the residents are going through.

Bret Burright, operations supervisor at the Houston Liquids Terminal, has been affiliated with the program for a year now and has men-tored three young men who struggled with addic-tions and homelessness that have gone through the program. Just recently he was able to attend the graduation of the first young man he men-tored. Burright met with the young man once a week to visit with him, answer any of his ques-tions, and just to let him know that he wasn't alone and that someone cared about him.

"I had problems in the past and I think it's good for the young men to see that there is hope and that there's a way out and they can change their lives," said Burright.

He added, "I have been so blessed to participate in changing these broken lives through the love of Jesus Christ. I think it's important to get involved in the community and to try to make it a better place."

The Open Door Mission is a faith-based re-covery and rehabilitation facility. This particular facility focuses on the most severely addicted, destitute, homeless and disabled men in the com-munity, men that many in society have given up on.

In addition to volunteering at the mission, Bur-right also visits the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Ramsey Unit in Rosharon every other month. The volunteers hold a church service, pray for the inmates, and give them an ear to talk to that is someone outside of the walls.

- Tracie VanBecelaere, Managing Editor

Open Door Mission provides an opportunity for community members to mentor men going through their rehabilitation program. Team member Bret Burright (right) is pictured with a young man he mentored.

BLU Team helps Veteran celebrate birthdayWhen you pay attention to those around you

it's amazing what rewards you will reap. Mem-bers of the Blue Ridge Southern Railroad (BLU) have become the benefactors of such rewards in the form of a great friendship that was forged merely by paying attention to an elderly man who took the time to wave at the crews every day. That man, Charlie McCoyle, is now an honorary team member of the BLU.

For several months, the WWII Veteran cheer-fully greeted the crews as they drove by, then they noticed he failed to show up for a couple of days and after checking on him, the team discovered that bad weather had not only kept him from his welcoming routine, but it kept him from getting provisions as well. They made sure he was stocked up and then, a bit later the

team sadly helped him move to a retirement home where he could be around others and be better looked after.

Just recently they got back together again to celebrate the 90 year-old's birthday with lunch and a cake. At his request, Charlie was also treated to trip on the train from Canton, North Carolina, to Asheville, North Carolina.

"It was the only birthday present he really asked for," said BLU General Manager Darl Far-ris. "And we were more than happy to make his day a little more special.

"We were proud to be able to share his special day with him as a small token of our appre-ciation for his service to our country," added Farris.

- Tracie VanBecelaere, Managing Editor

Blue Ridge Southern Railroad Team members help-ing WWII Veteran Charlie McCoyle celebrate his 90th birthday are (l-r): David Woody, track team, Brock Par-ham, track foreman, McCoyle, honorary team member, Brian Carnes, roadmaster, Roy Cooper, carman, Brad Hamlin, track team, and Cain Greene, trainmaster.