Mollie Mines

My freshman year of college I took an introduction to agriculture class and the professor told us that the average American is three generations removed from agriculutre and farming. In my experience in mining and conversing with people outside the industry I've thought about this statistic a lot and have the belief that the average American is at least five generations removed from mining. A lot of people, especially my family, don't understand why I would ever want to work in the mining industry. For me, it's simple. I absolutely love mining. I love getting to see things everyday that most people never get to see in their lifetime. To me the milling and metallurgical processes are like magic for adults. Mining is like my own grown up version of Fraggle Rock. I get to work with equipment that's bigger than the house I grew up in and it's still completely acceptable to collect pretty rocks I find no matter how old I get. As if all that wasn't good enough, I get ...

I believe that everyone experiences multiple moments of clarity throughout their lives that determine the path they walk in life. I currently find myself in the midst of a lot of change in my life and keep thinking about those moments of clarity that got me here. Those moment of clarity that I can clearly remember are: 1) Watching my first re-run of Rin Tin Tin K-9 Cop as a child and deciding I wanted to be a police officer when I grew up 2) Being in the middle of a sparring match in the police academeny and realizing that perhaps my short stature didn't make a very good match for the career I had chosen 3) Walking down the aisle at my wedding when I was 22 and thinking that I was probably making a big mistake 4) Thinking that the professor of my Introduction to Occupational Safety and Health class at Murray State University, Dr. Fender, was crazy when he started the semester by blaring the 80's song The Safety Dance from his computer before the first class yet being strage...