Pole by Pole

By Vince Hancock
Ellsworth County I-R

The Beckman cousins got off easy. Brandon suffered a painful ant bite, but both he and Matt managed to avoid angry Africanized bees and pica-pica, the plant that outdoes poison ivy, hands-down. Others deployed to Puerto Rico were not so lucky.

Normally, Matt, 39 and Brandon, 30, work in the Ellsworth area as park rangers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Matthew at Wilson Lake, Brandon at Kanopolis Lake. They recently returned from a 30-day stint in the U.S. territory, after answering a call from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

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