His mission accomplished

From the farm fields of Iowa to the starry world of the Kennedy Space Center, a stone cutter ferries a precious cargo - a national memorial to the Columbia astronauts.

Orlando Sentinel - Monday, June 23, 2003

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By NANCY IMPERIALE
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER

Honestly, drivers can be so inconsiderate - cutting you off, switching lanes, crowding your bumper.

"They don't think," says a travel-weary Jim Singer, "about the poor guy that's got a national monument on the back of his truck."

Singer is that guy. He arrived in Central Florida Saturday morning after a marathon road trip that began Wednesday evening in his hometown of Fairfield, Iowa.

He drove a flatbed diesel truck more than 37 hours straight, strapped with 2,600 pounds of precious cargo - wooden crates carrying the new additions to the Astronaut Memorial.

Inside, the crates are slabs of black granite bearing the names of the crew of the space shuttle Columbia. The granite will be installed on the Space Mirror Memorial, the $8 million monument to fallen astronauts at Kennedy Space Center.

Singer cut the astronauts' names into the rock. His company, Creative Edge Mastershop of Fairfield, spent months on the project. Singer and his bosses saw it as more than a job. It was an expression of patriotism. A tribute to heroes.

Still, as he loosens the ratchet straps that hold the crates in place on the flatbed, Singer, 33, is not exactly sentimental.

"Actually, I'm glad to get it off the truck," he says. Before delivering the memorial to Titusville, he had to drive to Boca Raton to deliver another job - a 1,100-pound floor medallion for a mansion in Miami.

"I had over a hundred-thousand dollars' worth of material on here. Between the weather, the road construction and the accidents we kept driving by, I just want to be able to take a breather and relax."

The stones were upright for the trip because granite is stronger on its edges than its center. The two slabs, plus a third piece of uncut granite, were secured in the shape of an A.

The driver was fueled by sweet tea and Everlasting Gobstoppers. His girlfriend, Kim Topping, 23, came along for company and to administer peppermint Life Savers and orange Mountain Dew as needed.

Topping, who has hair the color of corn silk and a nose sprinkled with freckles, does not complain about the less-than-romantic nature of such a mission. But she admits it wasn't a perfect journey.

"That truck is not comfortable," she says of the tight cab with bench seat. "You basically have to sit up straight the whole ride."

"Until your spine starts compressing," Singer adds matter-of-factly.

Continued

GARY W. GREEN/
ORLANDO SENTINEL

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GARY W. GREEN/
ORLANDO SENTINEL