Thousands of children, with their parents in tow, descended upon the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds over the weekend for the biggest sandbox and toy truck playground in the county: Dozer Day.
Kids took turns at the controls of excavators large and small, bulldozers and cranes. Others climbed the machinery, or in a great sand pit stacked with oversized tires.
Among the new attractions was a tennis ball-launching compressed air cannon built by RDO Equipment.
The company brought a commercial vacuum, the kind used to suck up rocks and dirt on construction sites, to supply the compressed air for their custom-made tennis ball launcher.
(The vacuum was a bit loud, so they eventually just hooked it to a different compressed-air source.)
After several tries, 7-year-old Henry Ezatpanah was able to maneuver the compressed-air cannon, which was about as long as he is tall, into position to fire a ball through the target.
He’s been coming to Dozer Day for four years, said his mother, Stephanie Ezatpanah.
His favorite this year? He pointed to the cannon.
“It was so hard!”
They had been there since the event opened at 11 a.m. His plastic toy hard hat was covered with stickers from the different booths and attractions.
“It’s an all-day thing for him,” Stephanie Ezatpanah joked. “I stand in line, he plays.”
It was the 14th year for Dozer Day, said Aimee Gebarowski of the Nutter Family Foundation, which organizes the event.
She estimated they saw about 20,000 guests over the weekend, including Friday, when they invited a group of students from the Evergreen School District for a special preview. The event planners also organized a preview for a group of students with disabilities, for a more low-key chance to check out the machinery.
This year was also the first time there was a job fair. Employers, including Nutter Corp., the family construction company behind the foundation and event, were on hand to talk about career opportunities.
Over the 10 years that the Nutter family has managed it, Dozer Day has generated more than $1.2 million for groups such as the local Boy Scouts, the Hough Foundation, Open House Ministries and the YWCA.
That success has led to licensed sister events elsewhere, organized in part as a way to find new employees and generate more interest in construction as a career.
“Nationwide, it’s really catching a lot of attention in the construction industry,” Gebarowski said. “People are wanting to know how we do what we do.”
“The construction industry is really desperate for generating not only new employees right now, but planning for the future.”
