Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to Monument Matters, a podcast produced by the Monument Builders of North America for all things Memorialization.
Each episode is an extension of our monthly magazine, MB News. Monument Matters invites everyone to listen and share. You'll find all of the episodes on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to season two, episode seven of MBNA's Monument Matters, a podcast produced by the Monument Builders of North America for all things Memorialization.
I'm your host, Mike Johns, cm AICA from the Johns Carabelli Company, Cimarano Monuments and Flowers in beautiful Cleveland, Ohio. I'm also a past president of Monument Builders of North America.
Harrison Monuments of Warsaw, Illinois earned national recognition from Monument Builders of North America for the Hardesty Tack Track Monument, which received the 2026 Excellence in Design Award, the association's highest honor.
Selected for more than 146 entries in a juried competition of industry professionals, the monument stood out for its innovative design, technical execution and deeply personal storytelling.
So with me today are Levi Buchman and Cody Knockey from Harrison Monuments, who led the team on this award winning project, and Adam Kennedy, sales representative from their manufacturing partner, Salem Stones of Columbus, Ohio, who worked with them to produce the memorial.
Welcome, gentlemen.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: Thanks, Mike.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: So Levi and Cody, tell us about Lane Hardisty.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: So Lane was a young man who had fought cancer for several years and I think with that he was actually able to and I don't know how from a personal level he was able to do this, but he actually sat down with his mom on more than one occasion and discussed what he wanted after he passed.
So he was definitely an outdoorsman. Anything with a motor and wheels he was all about, especially motocross that him and his brother shared a passion with. And when his mom came in, that was first and foremost.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: So when Lane's family first described him, what was the moment when you knew this had to be more than a traditional monument and what did your first concept look like?
[00:02:37] Speaker A: So initially or she came in and she met with one of our sales reps.
He I was sitting next to him and I overheard the discussion and kind of knew I needed to probably step in at that point because she presented pictures almost immediately. They had done the typical Google search looking for motocross inspired monuments. They had several reference images and when I stepped in I kind of I wanted to make sure it was doable but also achieve the overall concept that she was trying to portray. That's sometimes hard to do with words.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. Totally get it. Especially given that it's motorsports.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Right?
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Because motorsports are all about motion and energy so how did you translate something so dynamic into a static material like granite?
[00:03:32] Speaker A: I think the overall, like, we had multiple textures on the monument, faces on the monument, and multiple different design elements that kind of helped bring an overall picture together. The track, obviously, was the part that made it stand out the most. We've done that type of curbing on monuments before, but it's always been pretty generic squared off.
So trying to incorporate.
And at one point, we actually did try to get some images of one of the tracks that he raced at, but the issue is that they change that every year.
So I wasn't able to portray the actual tracks he raced at. So we just kind of went with more generic dirt bike track.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Sure.
So, Adam, at what point in a project like this do you, as a supplier typically become involved?
[00:04:26] Speaker C: Yeah, so I guess first off, you know, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Harrison Monuments for highlighting Salem, you know, for our role in and this memorial. You know, oftentimes, you know, retailers can be hesitant to share who they work with, and that wasn't the case here. I know Danielle mentioned Salem, you know, when she was on stage accepting the award. I wasn't in Fort Worth, but she, that day was texting me, sharing pictures, sort of expression, expressing her excitement and, you know, appreciation. So, you know, I wanted to take this opportunity, one to, you know, thank Danielle for that. We appreciate the partnership that the whole team that we have with the whole team at Harrison and the trust they place with us on custom monuments, you know, those are the fun ones for us on from the retailer side of things, you know, they can do exciting things with the design of, you know, standard shapes. You know, they can do cool things with engravings or etchings, but we don't always get to see that side of it. So the custom monuments are a little bit different. And sometimes, you know, when a retailer involves us, it's just with the sprout of an idea and we, you know, run for it when we run with it from there on this one, that wasn't the case. You know, Cody and the team at Harrison really had it fully designed by the time it got to us. Really did an excellent job sharing DXF file, AI file, all those reference images, you know, that Cody had mentioned. So we got it sort of fully baked.
We compiled that information. There was even a really nice hand drawing of it. I mean, this thing was.
It was close to design ready when we were really involved with it. We did a line drawing for review and approval, sent along a quote that all turned around in A day, if I looked back through it correctly.
And then from there, I think there was just a single round of some slight revisions, change pricing a little bit. And off of that second round, I think, is when we got the signature and said, okay, let's move forward with it. So it was a. It was one where the design side of it, I think they had had all of those conversations that need to take place, had really crossed most T's and, you know, dotted the I's by the time, you know, we were really involved with this one.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And if I can piggyback on that a little bit, we do try pretty hard when we send stuff to Salem to have to have as much information as we can on there. The track itself was something that I hadn't dealt with before. And sending them just kind of basic line drawings. I mean, it turned out perfect. Even their 3D renderings that they did, the. The line drawings themselves, they were, they were perfect. You asked earlier, you know, how long that initial design took. I think I did one which, when you deal with these type of monuments, and I think Adam can probably back me up on this, doesn't happen that often. It sure does usually have to go back and forth quite a bit. I sent the family one concept, and it was actually just a sketch on paper.
She okayed it. I did a full rendering shout out to Cameron with Memorial designer, and I got it all knocked out. She approved the concept. We sent it over. Like you said, there was maybe one minor change and it was in process.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I was, I was, I was surprised when I. I looked back. We have, you know, some ticketing software. We've gotten a little bit more high tech than, you know, Maybe we were 10 years ago, where everything's not just through, you know, email. But, you know, we. We have a little bit of a backend, you know, where you can go back through and see everything.
So I was reacquainting myself with this one. And a lot of times on these, you know, highly custom ones, you know, you'll see 50 correspondences. And, you know, it's. Sometimes it's us going back out to a supplier and everything sort of, you know, in this one column of things, you know, hey, we received this.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: We'll.
[00:08:10] Speaker C: We'll get it worked up, that sort of thing. So it's not always, hey, this is a. It's not 50 rounds of revisions, but, you know, there's multiple touch points on this one, you know, on. On a lot of these. And this one, I think it was. It was 10 so they had this thing fully baked out and we, you know, it was, you know, I'm glad we were able to execute as well as we were, but a testament, you know, to how the, the manner in which we received it. And we had kind of everything we needed from the initial inquiry to see this one through to the finish line.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Wow.
Well, it sounds like Levi and Cody really did your advance work well heading up to your involvement with Salem. But generally speaking, how can early collaboration between the local monument company and its manufacturing partner influence the final design and outcome?
[00:08:59] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So sometimes on these, you know, we don't get it this fully baked. Right. It's like I think I said before, that just really the sprout of an idea people are wanting. You know, they have a concept, you know, they met with the family and they don't maybe do a ton of custom monuments or this isn't something, you know, that they've designed that they've done before. So we have, I mean, a big catalog of monuments that we've completed. Of course, you know, we can reference those, we can give ideas, you know, but really I think the best role that we can play is providing really detailed line drawings, um, and making recommendations or suggestions on, you know, the right material or, you know, sizing that sort of thing. We, we give a lot of guidance there.
Hey, this, you know, we're running a five foot span here. Let's, let's make this a little bit thicker or some, some, some things like that where, you know, we can, we can do this collaboratively. The team that we work with, you know, on the line drawing site, getting those turned around, you know, this one was within a day. That's sort of the standard that we try to hold ourselves to. That way we're keeping our retailer engaged, they can keep the family engaged. You know, we're not trying to draw things out over multiple days where warm leads can get cold or, you know, it's hard to get the family back in if it's, you know, taking a week or, you know, there's, there's, you know, these issues that we hear from our retail partners that, that can, that they can run into. So we try to keep that side of it very, very tidy and provide whatever value we can, you know, reference images from projects we've created before. Some inspiration there. You know, we, we try to be as, as valuable of a partner as we can be on these custom monuments.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Sure.
So from the material side, what made the jet black granite the right choice for this design? And were there any Considerations or challenges in supplying stone for a project with this level of detail.
[00:11:03] Speaker C: So when we got it, you know, it was that, that was how it was specked. Seeing the final project or the completed monument. You know, there's so much laser etching on this that, you know, jet black was really the only logical choice. I mean that's the design, the shape of the stone and all that is, is cool and you know, unique and you know, we're proud to have been a partner with that side of things. But you know, the level of detail on the laser etching, the way those collages flow together, you know, the moon that I think we're going to get into here in a bit, you know, all of that is what really elevates this. So, you know, you're only going to get that, you know, with the jet black granite, the jet black that we, you know, provide, you know, we look for two things, that it's dark and that it's fine grained. So we have, we have inspectors, our suppliers in India, they're employees of Salem, they don't work for our supplier. They're checking our custom audience for a couple things. One, you know, that it's made to spec, right? That it's the right shape, that it's the right size within a quarter inch tolerance. And then we are inspecting for color, quality and consistency. So on the jet black, it's that what I mentioned, you know, it's that it's dark and that it's fine grained. The specific supplier who we utilize for this monument is one that we've worked with for about as long as Salem's been in business. They've grown sort of alongside with us. You know, we started as a, we didn't have a warehouse when, when the company started. And now, you know, we're in multiple locations, you know, thousand plus square feet facility in our main warehouse in Columbus. And this particular supplier is one who is every, you know, time that we've asked them to increase capacity, to grow along with us has, has done so. So that's a side of it too is, you know, we have relationships on both sides. You know, we have the relationships with our retail partners and then, you know, we manage the relationships with our suppliers too. And that's two separate ends of the business that have to work together. And you know, we hold our suppliers to a standard. You know, we are grading every single one and sharing, you know, pluses, minuses, all of that. And this particular supplier who we worked with is one who we lean on heavily for Our custom monuments. And I think that that's been a really nice partnership for us as well.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Sure. You talk about partnerships and relationships, and I think that's, you know, the most important part of this industry. Whether it's between the retailer and the customer or the retailer and their manufacturing partners, it's. That's where it's at. Having a good relationship, having a good understanding between all parties. That's what makes all the difference in the end for the customer.
So you briefly mentioned the recessed moon feature. So it created multiple depths for the laser etching. Can you walk us through what wasn't working at first and how you ultimately resolved that problem?
[00:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So when I designed it initially, I knew that there was going to be a hiccup with that, like a workaround that we were going to have to figure out.
With the old vitec lasers, the whole laser assembly would move up and down.
You could vary that quite a bit. And then if you needed to, you could take the nozzle tube off, and that would give you a bunch of clearance.
With the new setup of the vitec lasers, you don't have. You have to bring the stone up to the laser rather than bringing the assembly down.
So we were able to work around that and take the tube off, but you still don't have as much clearance as you used to.
So there was, you know, we were sweating a little bit throwing it up there for the first time.
There were multiple paper. Paper printouts that we did of it just to make sure everything lined up well. We ended up using a different nozzle. That let us have a little more clearance than the one I standard. That's standard for us. It was a. We have two lasers right now. We have one of the older models, and then we have a new L Star. I prefer the new one. It lasers much faster and more efficiently.
But that not being able to move the whole assembly kind of presented us a new challenge with this, which, again, I knew I was going to have going.
So we were able to get it done. Levi worked on all the laser etching for. I did the conceptual design.
Um, kind of gave him a roundabout of what I was looking for for the front, but the entire back and all the lettering was him.
At that point, I was running our laser. I was the only one that ran our laser machines.
And we were getting into some heavy production time.
And knowing his capabilities with designing collages, I knew that it wouldn't be an issue at all. And he. He knocked it out of the park.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Right.
Well, congratulations, Levi, for that so this design combines polished finishes, rock pitch, textures, and sculpted elements. So how do you balance visual impact with long term durability in a monument like this?
[00:16:17] Speaker A: I think the main concern I had was the track itself being polished and flush with the ground. We use foundation caps, so we did go a little wider than we normally do to give some clearance. And I think in this case, I did have a discussion with family, explain the concerns of it.
She and I agree with her. It is in a very well maintained cemetery.
It is the spotlight of the cemetery now. I mean, it sticks out as soon as you drive in. It is a rural town.
And I expressed my concerns with, you know, you don't know who's going to be mowing it in 20 or 30 years.
You don't know who's going to be weed eating it. You have the polish that close to the ground. So I had that discussion with her. She was okay with it. We went a little larger with the foundation cap, gave us a little more clearance.
Overall, I don't see an issue in the future at all. That was really my only concern, durability wise.
And going back to Adam, we deal with very few suppliers. And the reason we deal with Salem is because of the quality of the granite, especially the jet black. We do a lot of laser etching. I have no concern with the laser etching at all, at all on Salem's jet black granite.
So other than those two, there's no real concern.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Got it. So you kind of gave it like a safety margin, if you will. Yeah, got it. Sure.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: So now I always get nervous putting polish close to the ground, as do we. Especially black.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So now that the monument's in place, what kind of feedback have you heard from Lane's family and how have people responded when they experienced it in person?
[00:18:07] Speaker A: So his mother knew. The day that we got the award, Danielle did the same thing. She texted her immediately. She actually tried to call her and left her voicemail. We spoke to her the following week. She was static. She. When I first met with her and we got this all wrapped up, the design itself, she asked if there was any contest that could be put in. She wanted this to be recognized.
[00:18:32] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: She called that following week after the convention, and she was offering to buy the whole crew lunch. I mean, she wanted to come down for the day.
I mean, just overly ecstatic. And as far as the community itself, I've had people reach out from neighboring towns asking all sorts of questions about it, how we designed it, where it came from, you know, like, it is the talk of the town up there right now.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: Nice. And that's, you know, a testament to why it's so important to work with your local monument retailer. You know, someone that is connected to the community for sure. So a plug for the local guy. Absolutely. Especially in your case.
So when you accepted the award at Emba University meeting at Fort Worth, you mentioned that coming from a small town, that recognition was unexpected.
So can you tell us a little bit about your company, your community, and what this award means to Harrison Monument Team?
[00:19:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So Harrison Monuments was started in 1963 by Wilbur Harrison. His son Perry got into business with him a few years after that, and then his wife Janet got involved. Perry and Janet are still with the business. Their children, Danielle and Gabe run the business now and then. Myself and I have two cousins that are involved. So I am the operations manager. My cousin Natalie runs our operations office in Quincy, Illinois, and my cousin Wilson, he cuts our final dates.
So we were fourth generation. Warsaw, Illinois is a small town of 1600 people. We can see Iowa and Missouri from our town. So we're right on the border of Illinois Island, Missouri. It does have a rich history. It goes back to.
There's a lot of Mormon history in the area. There were a couple forts in town. We actually have a giant obelisk in town.
Ironically, it's about 40 foot tall, so. But there's just not a lot. I mean, it's a farming community and all the surrounding towns are. That's just. That's the main.
That's the main business.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: And these opportunities to do these sorts of monuments don't come around every day. It's very rare that we get to do something this custom. Maybe one a year. Yeah. And that's almost by far, you know, really involved.
So we are really excited to be able to work on it with his mom and honor his legacy with it. So we were just super excited that we won.
Not expecting it at all.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: Especially for such a small terror area.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: It really is nice when you can. When you can be involved in a project that's different than the typical when. When all said and done, it's the satisfaction of completing the project, you know, but certainly there's a lot of trepidation that goes along with, you know, the what ifs and did I cover all my bases? Did I think about this? Did I think about that? That don't come into play when you're doing the standard or more, I don't want to say generic, but less intricate. Let's just say that. So it's great when you can step back from something that's been so complicated and so special and know that it came off better than you anticipated. Right?
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And like, a lot of the time we'll get, we do a lot of custom designs, but having the opportunity to do a custom shape that the family is giving us creative freedom on, doing the custom etching, like everything together, it just, it does not come around that often for us.
And then on top of that, when you're going up against people like Charlie Hunt and Drew Bot and Tony Watson and Troy Caldwell, it just, I mean, you never think it's going to happen.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Well, if this is any indication, I have a funny feeling that you're going to see more of this on the horizon. So good luck to you with that.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: I'll add it's cool from our end to see the completed monument, to be sort of involved on this end of things. You know, oftentimes we do these custom monuments, we ship them out blank and then we kind of never really see or hear anything again.
Our, you know, from the retailer side of it, I mean, I get it. Our side, our part of, you know, the equation is completed. I guess the times we do hear about it aren't, aren't always the good stuff.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:11] Speaker C: It's right when, when there's. There, there's an issue. My phone doesn't often ring because someone wants to call me and say, hey, this went off without a hitch and it looks great, happens from time to time. But those aren't the majority, you know, of the interactions and phone calls. Not saying that issues happen, you know, often, but, you know, when, when, when they do, you know, that's, that's a point that's raised. So anyway, just wanted to say, hey, it's one cool to be involved and cool to see sort of the completed end of things, hear the story about how, you know, happy the family is and you know, that it's, you know, provided some, you know, hopefully some, some closure, you know, to them in what was surely a difficult time. Just wanted to express that.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: Sure. And I think, you know, Adam, you, you bring up a really valid point. You know, for us, the, the retail monument builder is really connected to the family and the story and the legacy in a much different way than, than our manufacturing partners are.
And so I think you're right and it's true of us too. You know, we do try to share with our partners when we hit one out of the park and the family is so excited. But to be honest, those phone calls generally are fewer than the ones, hey, we're a little bit behind the time. Or, you know, we had a little problem with this.
So I would encourage all my other retail friends out there who are listening to the podcast to stop and think about that for a minute and say, you know, maybe we should be thanking our manufacturing partners a little bit more than we do instead of just picking up the phone when there's a problem. You know, it's an interesting thing because, you know, I grew up learning this business from my grandfather.
My grandfather was, you know, he grew up in the Depression, right? So there was an expectation you did the job that you were told to do and you did it at the highest level. And as long as you did it at the highest level, you got a paycheck, you didn't get an award, you didn't get a pat on the back, you didn't get any of those things. That's not the way society really worked, you know, and I think to our detriment. So I do think that it's, it's important to remember to say, hey, great job. This one really was better than the last. Or this one, again, was exactly what we expected.
So, you know, not just pointing out the mistakes, but pointing out the, the times that you hit it out of the park. I think that we really all could do a better job of that kind of thing.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: For sure.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: For sure.
So with that, I think we're running out of time for today, so I want to thank our guests, Levi Buchman, Cody Konaki from Harrison Monuments, and Adam Kennedy from Salem Stones. The main issue of MB News is the design issue, so I encourage you to read that issue to read more about the MBNA Award winning project. I also encourage you to think about the projects you are working on now that you'd like to enter into the Design Award competition next year. So if you have a topic you'd like to have covered in a future podcast, please leave a comment. Thanks for listening to today's installment of Monument Matters. MBNA invites you to stay connected Through Facebook and LinkedIn or visit us at www.monimalbuilders.org for upcoming events and webinars for M and A and Monument Matters. I'm Michael Johns. Thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in.
If you found today's content worthwhile, please share the link with a friend for comments and feedback. We'd love to hear from you, as always, so please drop a note to infoonumentbuilders.org and please remember to mark your calendars down because the 2027 Monument Industry show will be in Mobile, Alabama, February 25th to 28th, 2027.
So thanks again for joining Monument Matters. Until next time, stay tuned. Stay well.
