We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
Although the Turner Tornadoes didn't advance beyond District Basketball Tournaments, they would have ridden in style to Divisional and State competitions in their green Blue Bird Bus. Their new activity bus got a facelift with several vinyl decals at the end of February when two employees with Kelly's Signs, a sign manufacture and design company located in Great Falls, travelled to the Hogeland, Montana, on February 19.
According to Adam Billmayer, when the athletic bus arrived at his shop about noon on Sunday, members of the student body, including Caleb Zellmer, Tate and Ty Beck, Abby, Luke, and Zane Grabofsky, and Trent Billmayer thoroughly washed the vehicle. Supervising parents, Shawn Beck, Matt Grabofsky, Jordan Zellmer, and Adam and Shawna Billmayer assisted.
Laboring diligently, the group was ready for the two Kelly's Signs employees who arrived at the shop around mid-afternoon. The pair worked well into that evening.
After spending the night at the home of Jordan and Elissa Zellmer, the two sign employees resumed work early Monday morning and finished around 3:30 that afternoon. They expressed appreciation for their hosts by saying: "Thank you so much, Turner High School-home of the Tornadoes-for trusting us with your new design and installation. The hospitality for our crew in Hogeland was the BEST!"
With thirty years in the business, Chris Kelly, one of the owners of Kelly's Signs, shared information about the decal application process. "The process begins with ideas being bounced back and forth. Then, we design what the customer has asked for and proportion it to the size of the vehicle," she explained.
To print the design, a roll of 54-inch-wide vinyl, is fed into a six foot printer. Once printed, the decal has to dry before it is laminated. The laminate allows for the material to be stretched and contoured as it is applied with heat. Because the vinyl is covered with glue dots, once the material is laid and the lines and designs are matched, the heat application melts the glue so that the vinyl adheres to the desired surface.
When she visits school groups, Kelly tells her audience that she makes stickers. Those designed for the Big Flat community's school included the words Turner Tornadoes, accompanied by a tornado funnel cloud touching the ground and stirring up dust. These were affixed to both sides of the vehicle, with a smaller one on the back of the bus above the emergency exit door. That sticker is flanked by a pair of angel wings and a halo hovering above a bus with the name Steve underneath. These serve to commemorate the memory of Steve Humphreys, who drove both a route bus and the activity bus for Turner Public Schools for several years before his passing in December of 2022.
In Kelly's estimation, the design has a life span of six-eight years, with exposure to ultra-violet light from the sun's rays, pressure washing, and travel on dirt roads all determining and affecting longevity.
