The rowdiest and most lively room this evening at the SME in Salt Lake City was the Student Mixer in the Hilton Hotel.  The future leaders of the mining industry gathered to drink–and the drink lines were long–and talk.  I wondered in as part of a small role CostMine had in supplying the students with cost data to solve the competition problem set them as sponsored by a long list of quarry operators and suppliers.  As best I can tell the fifteen competing mining schools were asked to plan the opening of a new quarry in California–and we all know what an mining-unfriendly state that is. 

The winning school was Virginia Tech and we celebrate for their success–they deserve all the good they can get.  Second was Reno and third South Dakota School of Mines.  I am told this is the first time they entered the competition and they did extra-ordinarily well. 

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Salt Lake City and a savage storm bearing down black on the city.   We are safely (we presume) esconced in the Salt Palace, another of those endless conference centers where at five pm the Society of Mining Engineers Annual Conference kicks off. 

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