US Aggregates Supplies Materials for Klondike Middle School Project in Tippecanoe County

By Zoe Buhl

Construction of Tippecanoe County’s new Klondike Middle School is scheduled to be completed this fall in time for the 2024-2025 school year. As a long-time partner of the school system, US Aggregates was the supplier of choice for nearly 100,000 tons of materials for the project since it started in 2022.

The project is east of the middle school campus. It sits on 40 acres and is the first phase of a larger campus improvement project. Once completed, the school will serve grades 6-8, and the former middle school will become an intermediate school for grades 3-5, followed by an elementary school renovation. Not only will the project increase student capacity for the Klondike campus, but it will also improve safety and traffic flow by adding additional access from US-231 and more.

“It’s really rewarding knowing that our aggregate is going to a local school, which will directly impact our community,” said US Aggregates Sales Manager Ross Larimore. “It’s especially rewarding to see where our material is going when it’s for our kids. Some of our employees’ kids will go to this school, so knowing that we had a hand in building these new schools is pretty awesome.”

There are several different products involved in the project from INDOT riprap, 2’s, 8’s and 53’s from the US Aggregates Delphi limestone quarry along with INDOT b-borrow sand from the US Aggregates Swisher sand and gravel plant in Battle Ground.

R&W Contracting, the main sitework contractor on the project, connected with US Aggregates when the bidding for the project began, and US Aggregates has worked closely with R&W since the project’s start. This specific area in West Lafayette needed a bigger school to meet the needs of the community’s growth. Since the project was essentially in US Aggregate’s backyard, it was a natural fit with a long-standing customer.

“Being a part of this project feels like we are serving the community that we work in every day,” said R&W Contracting Project Manager Matthew Miller. “There is more feeling of accomplishment with school projects like this compared to any other project we may be a part of.”

US Aggregates is consistently involved in communications with R&W to ensure the project is running smoothly, and the US Aggregates team visits the site regularly to check progress and confirm the materials are meeting the customer’s needs.

“I think the hard work of our employees to be able to keep up with the tonnage demand on this project has been crucial, along with the communication between R&W and our team,” said Ross. “This project has gone smoothly, and it’s because of great communication and hard work between each party and the employees on site and in the plant.”

The Klondike portion of the Tippecanoe School Corporation has been growing rapidly over the last several years. Matthew also shared that beyond giving the growing student population a place to learn, the project will show the West Lafayette area community that the school corporation is here to help facilitate the rapid growth the area has seen and will continue to see over the coming years.