Archive: Around Town

The successful rescue last week of 17 miners at Cargill's Cayuga Salt Mine garnered national attention.  Less prominent was news of how the community and the company supported and protected the mine employees, their families, and their privacy, both during and after the rescue.  Local stores and restaurants provided food during the rescue.  Residents deflected national news reporters from invading the privacy of the miners and their families.  Lansing Rod and Gun Club members decided to offer a free breakfast Sunday morning for the mine employees and the emergency responders who got them out safely.  Club secretary Theresa Armstrong says club members decided to host the free breakfast Thursday evening, which only gave them two days to organize it.

"It's a very frightening thing, when you hear it on the news when you're first waking up.  It's sickening to think that people from our own community, our friends, our family, are trapped in there," says Lansing Road and Gun Club treasurer Theresa Armstrong.  "Everybody wants to pull together as a community to help them.  We wanted to do something to give back to our communities and thank our first responders for getting everybody out of there safely.  We are about our community."

The club normally serves breakfast to between 25 and 60 people every Sunday, depending on the season.  Some come for the breakfast and the company, while others come to eat and participate in the Sunday open trap shoot.  This Sunday the regular menu was put aside.  Armstrong Automotive, The Larkin Agency, Lansing Rod & Gun Club and Hicks Septic & Excavation donated money to cover costs so mine employees and emergency responders could eat for free.  31 people came for the pancakes, bacon, sausage and scrambled eggs.  Flyers around the clubhouse sported a 'Cargill 17' symbol.

Once the miners were safe on the surface, Cargill also stepped up to support their employees.  The company was quick to assure them that despite the mine being closed they would be paid as if they were working a normal 40 hour week, for as long as it takes before the mine reopens.  Officials from the parent company met with mine employees and local mine officials to help answer questions and address concerns at the Lakewatch Inn.  They gathered employees at the Lakewatch Inn to let them know what will be happening, and to hear and try to address their concerns.

"It was to bring everybody together and let them know what we knew," says Cargill Spokesman Mark Klein.  It was to tell them that it would be as if it were a 40 hour week until we're back in operation.  To ask them what was on their minds.  This particular part of the business is based in Cleveland.  We had a few people from there, and a couple of people from Minneapolis where the parent company is based.  It was an appropriate thing to do to show people that we take this seriously.  That we care."


Safety wasn't the only issue.  Members of the national broadcast network press were desperate to find miners to interview on-air, preferably one of the rescued miners, to discuss the ordeal.  But they were met with a wall of silence as local residents and Cargill itself refused to put them in contact with mine employees.  Lansing Fire Department Incident Commander Dennis Griffin worked closely with mine officials to provide a safe place organized by Red Cross volunteers at All Saints Catholic Church, away from the press to keep them updated as the rescue progressed.  National reporters learned there was a place for the families, but were not told where to find it.

"That's their privacy," Armstrong says.  "I know a lot of people in this town.  I grew up here.  You want to protect them."

A friend of Armstrong, the son of another friend and her cousin were among the employees stuck in the elevator.  She is not unique.  Many people grew up with mine employees, went to school with them, socialize with them.  Some of the employees are members of the Rod & Gun club and other local organizations, and the Company is regularly very generous with money and employee time to give back to the Lansing community. 

Mine support employee Fran Bell is a member of the Lansing Volunteer Fire Department, and coaches town Recreation Department soccer, basketball, football, baseball and softball teams, and helps with Recreational skating at the RINK, and bowling at the Bowladrome.  He is not the exception -- many mine employees volunteer their time for projects including Salt Point cleanups and setting up the enormous bonfire for the annual veterans' watch fire on Myers Point.  Cargill provides cash for local celebrations in Lansing and Tompkins County as well as charitable causes such as Relay For Life, local food pantries, the teaching kitchen, the Franziska Racker Centers, and three or four scholarships per year.  Each year the local mine donates to between 25 and 30 local organizations, and the Minnesota-based corporation also gives money to local projects as they did when they donate $45,000 over three years for the Lansing schools' Project Lead The Way.  So it should be no surprise that when the Company and its employees were in need the community rallied to help.

Lansing Market, Crossroads Bar & Grill and Dunkin Donuts sent food to the site for the emergency responders.  So many people wanted to help that the company had to say no to some of the offers.  Emergency responders and Cargill managers were praised for their collaborative, reasoned response to the crisis.

"Everybody stepped up and did their part as best they could," Bell says. "I think Lansing is a pretty nice community, and a nice place to live, a tight-knit community.  Everybody helped out.  It was absolutely incredible what everybody in the community did for the families and all the Cargill personnel, and all the people that work at Cargill stepped up.  Corporate.  I can't say enough about Shawn Wilczynski.  He's a great mine manager.  He did what he needed to do to take care of his men and women that work there."

"I had complete faith that our mine rescue people knew exactly what they were doing," Armstrong says.  "I know enough people that work at Cargill.  I hear them talk and I know that they knew what they were doing.  And our Lansing Fire Department and all the corresponding fire departments from the area knew exactly what they were doing.  As a community everybody pulls together.  Because it's necessary."

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