Along with the many changes that come along with a new year, one of those changes came unexpectedly.  Shortly after the holidays sad news came to the Wendling Quarries Family.  We lost one of our fellow employees, Ronald (Ron) Brandenburg on January 9^th.   Ron was working as a Loader Operator at the Mount Carroll Quarry when he died suddenly of natural causes.

Ron had been a heavy equipment operator for many years.  Before he became a Wendling employee he was self-employed and also worked on many road crews.  Ron started his career at Aggrecon in 1987 which then became Wendling Quarries, Inc. in 1990.

        Ron was born on July 18, 1939 in Clinton, IA and he was a graduate of Delmar High School in 1957. Ron loved his family, being a dad and grandpa.  Ron also served on the Delmar town council as Mayor for over 20 years. 20 years. 20 years. 20 years.

        Ken Behn, Patrick (Oats) Trenkamp & Roger “T” Trenkamp are just a couple of the guys that Ron used to work with over the years.  All three of them made a few of the same comments about Ron, “he was always the first person at work,” “he never complained about having to work some overtime every now & then,” “he was very well liked and never said anything bad about anyone,” and finally “Ron definitely enjoyed a good political debate.”

Roger went on to say that Ron was a good co-worker and a caring guy because “he was one of the first people to call to make sure I was okay after some personal health issue.”  Also, there were many times Roger would find himself during lunch or at the end of the day grabbing a cup of coffee with Ron to talk about anything from politics, family matters to personal issues and he could always trust that what they talked about would stay between them.

Oats had a couple memories of Ron from when he was working on his crew before moving to the Loader Operator at Preston.  “Ron was a good guy to work with.  Our crew was young and Ron was the older guy who was always on time.  Over the years, the crew became a close bunch. One Saturday morning our crew was working at Bowser Quarry.  Darwin Michel saw Ron coming so he quickly jumped out of this pick up to call him ‘Bonzi.’ (Karate Kid Movie was new at the time).   Ron looked at him and said ‘I’ll Bonzi you!’ Ever since that day he was known as ‘Bonzi.’”

Oats’ also remembered the time his crew had been working a very long day.  Since they had worked longer than expected, Ron decided to order dinner to bring home for his wife, Marge.  “When his food came Ron stepped away for only a couple of minutes.  During that time a crew member (no names mentioned) replaced his dinner with a couple of beverages.  The guys on the crew assumed Ron would sample the food on the way home, but to our surprise - he didn’t!  When Ron got home he said ‘supper is on the table,’ while he went to change his clothes.  To Ron’s surprise Marge questioned him about where the food went?  Within a few minutes Ron had returned to get his dinner from the guys.  We all had a good laugh.”

Here at Wendling we wish Ron Brandenburg’s family the very best during this time of loss. Ron will be missed!