Delta Brings Larry H. Lemon Award to Missouri
BY Sandy Lender
Apex wins national asphalt award with 5,000 tons in three days on Missouri overlay
Apex Paving Company, a division of Delta Companies Inc., located in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, took the farm-to-market road concept to heart in the fall of 2024. They performed an exemplary overlay project for the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) on Route UU amid the fields of Mississippi County while communicating with the farmers in the area to meet everyone’s needs. Here’s how they accomplished this for an award-winning finish.
The project ran from Route 62 to Route D in Mississippi County, through the city of Charleston. Not only did the crew place a 1-inch lift of plant mix surface leveling mix, but they also handled detail work along the way.
The Apex Paving Company crew placed 5,069 tons of plant mix surface leveling course with 34% RAP to increase the smoothness of Route UU, improve safety, enhance the driving experience for the end users and garner a Larry H. Lemon Award. Photos courtesy of Delta Companies Inc.
Construction Manager Cecilia Cain explained, “This job had a mill/fill section in the city limits of Charleston where a job installing ADA sidewalk had recently been completed. No quick thinking per se, but extra care in not getting mix or tack stains on the new concrete was important.”
Starting Sept. 3, 2024, the Delta team produced mix with 34% recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) at its Aesco-Madsen plant located about 18 miles from the Route UU project. Plant Operator Daniel Baker averaged 235 tons per hour at 330°F.
Paver Operator Chris Lombeida paves the mainline for the award-winning Route UU project.
Trucks delivered the mix directly to the Cat AP655F hopper—no material transfer vehicle was used. Chris Lombeida, the paver operator, managed the material expertly to the front-mounted screed and placed it for the rolling train. The breakdown roller, a Bomag BW190, was operated by Jason Duckworth.
The team managed the project with a combination of good communication and the latest technology.
Screed Operator Kennith Pitts helped bring together an award-winning overlay on Route UU.
“This road was paved in the fall in the heart of row crop country,” Cain explained. “We managed to arrive ahead of time and communicated with the farmers in the area that we would be paving, resulting in a safer and better-quality finished product. This also resulted in farmers being able to communicate with us that they would like for driveways to be paved further back, resulting in a long-term benefit for the owner of the road with less gravel tracked onto the roadway and improving long-term safety.”
The Delta team also tracked and managed all that movement internally, using Fleetwatcher for electronic ticketing and truck fleet monitoring.
The finished pavement of Route UU in Mississippi County, Missouri, offers a safer and smoother experience for the end user.
By Sept. 5, 2024, the team had placed 5,069 tons of plant mix surface leveling course to increase the smoothness of the route, improve safety, enhance the driving experience for the end users and garner one of the 10 Larry H. Lemon Awards for the year.
“The standard deviation of the test results along with the appearance of the finished product is how we knew this product was worthy of submitting,” Cain shared. “The ride and aesthetics of this road are enormously improved from what was there before. It takes a team that truly cares about the project to have such a good-looking finished product.”