Knight Hawk's Growth Necessitates Mine Rescue Team
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The growth of Knight Hawk Coal Co. in recent years has necessitated the organization of a mine rescue team at Knight Hawk.
The team was formed in January 2009 because of the mining company's growing footprint in Southern Illinois and recent changes in state policy.
Now, each mining company that operates in Illinois is required to have its own team.
The team covers Knight Hawk Coal Co. plus serves as backup to the Peabody Gateway Mine in Coulterville. In return, they back up Knight Hawk.
Knight Hawk's team consists of eight men, each with a particular area on which they concentrate.
The team includes Mike Leadabrand, alternate; John Newberry, gas man; Justin Overturf, gas man; Brian Hunsaker, mat man; Justin Lemons, captain; and Bill Sanders and John Sweet, trainers; Brock Patterson, tall captain; tom Helmer, fresh air base; and Vic Leber, alternate.
Knight Hawk honored the team on Saturday, September 18 with a dinner at the Tuscany Grill in Du Quoin.
Andrew Carter, Jim Smith, Bill Sanders, Dale Winters and Gary Chaney praised the hard work and accomplishments of the team.
Knight Hawk benefits from one of the best safety records in the industry and is a huge part of Perry County's economy.
A Little Background
The large coal companies had pulled out of Southern Illinois by the 1990s, but by no means were the coal reserves exhausted - a 250-year supply of bounty remained. Also left behind was a mining heritage that ran as deep as the coal seams. Generations of families had worked the mines.
It took the vision of four men - Steve Carter, F.D. Robertson, James Bunn and James Bunn, Jr. - to revive the proud heritage of coal mining in Southern Illinois.
The partners understood that niche markets still sought the high-quality coal of Southern Illinois. In April 1997, a new coal company was born and a regional industry reborn.
Knight Hawk Coal differs from its predecessors. One won't find the behemoth draglines or other monster machinery at its mines. Instead, a fully mobilized operation relying on Caterpillar D-11 bulldozers do the work.
Knight Hawk runs under the tenets that it must be adaptive, streamlined and mobile. The company's growth demonstrates that this is a formula for success. What started as a 15-man operation extracting 260,000 tons of coal a year today employs 350 workers sending to market 3.6 million tons of product yearly.
In August 2006, Arch Coal acquired a one-third interest in Knight Hawk in exchange for cash and coal reserves. This demonstrated the confidence the nation's number two coal producer has in Knight Hawk's capabilities and helped secure a brighter future for the company.