One man's junk... Another man's treasurer

By Scott Meeker
CNHI News Service

April 29, 2008 04:19 pm

— JOPLIN, Mo. — At the start of his lunch hour on a wet Monday afternoon, Ben Mitchell began what has become a daily ritual, so long as the weather is nice.
Leaving his office at LaBarge Inc., he walked across the parking lot, past another business and then headed east along Junge Boulevard.
Mitchell’s eyes remained cast downward, scanning the ground in front of him.
“A lot of times, after a heavy rain, more things will wash up to find,” he said.
A few moments later, something catches his eye near the curb — a glimmer of orange among the green, rain-soaked blades of grass.
“They’re earplugs,” Mitchell said, as he bent to pick up the bright orange plugs strung together by a strand of blue wire. “These have a lot of potential for art.”
For more than a year, the quality assurance engineer has been collecting items found during his lunch-hour walks. The random bits of FOD — short for foreign object debris — that he and other walkers have collected had been stored in a box in his office.
A few months ago, he began to see if he could put the pieces together.
What has resulted is a series of sculptures created from items that people have either lost or thrown away. Look carefully at one of his colorful pieces and one will spot screws, bottlecaps, toys, old keys and pieces of scrap metal that Mitchell has turned into something new.
“I’ve been collecting things on my walks for about a year and a half,” he said. “It turned into kind of a joke here (at LaBarge). When I came back from my walk, I’d just lay whatever I had found out on my desk. People would come around and say, ‘What did you pick up today?’”
Mitchell varies the route he walks, trying not to cover the same territory too often. When football season is in full swing, he said the area around Junge Stadium is a virtual treasure trove.
As his collection began to grow, he was faced with the question of what he was going to do with it all.
“After a while, I decided I was going to make something out of it, recycle it,” he said. “I took the box home, cleaned it all up with soap and water and came up with some ideas of what to turn it into.”
Among his creations so far is a motorcycle — driven by a cat/action-figure hybrid — and a mobile strung with an oddball assortment of FOD.
Back at LaBarge, Mitchell put the earplugs in a box with other recent acquisitions, which included a pencil, a plastic pirate skull, a lighter and a piece of tubing from a broken snorkel.
He took the earplugs out again to show to co-worker Jim Bayless — another LaBarge engineer who Mitchell introduces as a member of the “FOD patrol.”
“There are a couple of us who walk during the lunch period,” Bayless said. “It started out with us finding interesting objects on the walk and grew from there.”
Mitchell said he takes the found items home, cleans them up and lets the creativity flow, looking for pieces that might fit together. From bolts to bubble wands and cell-phone covers, no piece goes to waste — he uses everything that he finds.
He soon discovered that his unique creations — which include a “Spider-Man trophy,” a tall assemblage of parts topped by the web-slinging hero, and a smiling face sporting a plastic hat and wrap-around shades — could serve a larger purpose at LaBarge.
“When someone is off for medical reasons, we’ll have a raffle,” Bayless said. “People will bring in items to raffle to help others through a rough time.”
Mitchell recently submitted his “Original FOD Mobile” for a raffle, an item that Bayless said became “highly sought after.”
“It was more of a gag item,” Mitchell said. “People would buy a ticket for it, then put someone else’s name on it.”
His collection of found objects and artwork have become the object of some fascination with his coworkers.
“We have scoffers, we have art lovers; people who think it’s a neat thing to do and others who just shake their heads and walk away,” he said.
While he is willing to chip in when it comes to finding the FOD for Mitchell to work with, Bayless lets his co-worker take all the credit when it comes to the unusual sculptures.
“I equate it to he’s the one who built the Empire State Building,” Bayless said with a laugh. “I’m just the guy who drove the cement truck.”
For his part, Mitchell said his hobby is a way to get some good exercise, clean up the environment a little and entertain his grandchildren.
“They think I’m crazy ... a ‘What are you doing with that?’ kind of thing,” he said. “But when (a sculpture) gets done, they like it.”

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