By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The horizon in the northwest corner of Barton County has a new feature. Earlier this month, workers from Farley Machine Works Company helped Mark Hlavaty install a handmade monument atop a 50-foot silo on his farm near Olmitz. Chris Hamit with Farley helped set the 2,000-pound monument in its new home.
"He's said he's lived in the house and he gets tired of seeing an empty silo every morning when he walks out," Hamit said. "He needed something to do with it so he decided that, instead of tearing it down, because everyone tears them down, he wanted to put something at the top. That way, every morning when he comes out, he can look up there and see it."
Hlavaty created the monument out of old implements. It features a cowboy kneeling between his horse and a 14-foot-tall cross.
Farley donated its crane and time to make the project happen. Hamit, with coworkers Brayden Murray and Jason Shelton, took down a nearby fence to access the silo, lifted the monument to the top of the silo, and secured it. Hamit got to the top of the silo with Farley's bucket truck, but once there, had to navigate a concrete path just two inches wide with a 50-foot drop over either side.
"At first, I was kind of nervous, to be honest with you," he said. "It was actually really windy that way. After I got over the fact that I was all right, it was kind of exciting because it's something that, in all reality, not everybody gets to do in their life."
Hamit estimates the monument is visible for up to two miles around the farm. It will add character to the already beautiful Kansas sunsets.