Quick with a brick

Bricklayers test their skills in the Spec Mix Bricklayer 500 competition in Sussex in August. Photo courtesy of Quikrete Wisconsin Inc.

Bricklayer Jim Meffer has a competitive streak.

He’s practiced his craft since he was a kid, and the Manistique, Mich., man said he’s always tried to be the fastest on the wall.

So despite claiming top prizes for both speed and quality in the Spec Mix Bricklayer 500 competition in Sussex in August, he said watching the tape of his victory was difficult.

“I was disgusted with myself,” he said. “I was laying them like I was at work.”

While that’s certainly no cause for shame, Meffer said he’ll re-evaluate his strategy for the national championships in Las Vegas on Jan. 23.

“I’m gonna take her up a couple notches,” he said. “I’ll put it into fourth gear.”

It could be an important decision. While the 486 bricks he laid in one hour in the Sussex contest were enough to bring a local title, national champions usually lay 750 or more, said Roy Greenwood, general manager of Sussex-based Quikrete Wisconsin Inc., the sponsor of the local event.

The concept of the competition is simple. Start with nothing and build a plumb wall that meets specified tolerances and otherwise demonstrates technical quality. The person who meets those criteria and lays the most bricks inside an hour wins.

“This is pretty serious business once they say go,” Meffer said. “And it’s that way on the job, too. Everyone wants to be the fastest.”

Meffer claimed the overall prize as well as the craftsmanship award, which honors the person who built the best-looking and most salable wall. He beat out six other contestants.

Perhaps his slow-and-steady approach had some merit after all. While others laid more bricks — one man set 608 — all of those speed demons were disqualified for failing to meet the quality standards.

For his efforts, Meffer took home two $700 cash awards, a new wheelbarrow and a tool bag. And he won the right to match skills with the nation’s fastest bricklayers for an $80,000 prize package in Las Vegas.

But the prize money doesn’t hold a candle to the privilege of competing, he said.

— Jennifer Pfaff

Give them a brake

Facts and figures are fleeting.

When you want people to remember your message, you’ve got to hit them in the heart. That’s the theory behind a new series of public-service announcements aimed at getting drivers to slow down near construction zones.

It’s true that 14 Wisconsin road construction workers were killed in accidents last year. It’s a fact that 900 more were injured. But that’s not the focus of the message.

“In terms of public service, you don’t want to get too lecture-y — there’s so much of that out there,” said Jennifer Savino, public relations director with Knupp & Watson, the Madison-based firm hired by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to conduct the campaign. “People can get too saturated.”

Instead, the radio spots take an emotional approach, depicting the terrifying moments just after a collision but before help has arrived or recreating the strained conversations that happen over a hospital bed.

“It’s not a scare tactic,” Savino said. “We’re trying to get people to think about the consequences.”

— Jennifer Pfaff