April 16, 2001

WKU Concrete Canoe Team Wins 6th Straight Regional Title

Bowling Green, Ky. - "Aquavette: America's Concrete Canoe" carried Western Kentucky University engineering students to their sixth straight regional title and into national competition.

Western's concrete canoe team swept every event in the academic and paddling competitions to outdistance Kentucky, Dayton, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Toledo on Saturday at Basil Griffin Park.

"Our success in this event has really put WKU on the engineering map and is certainly evidence of the reason behind and strength of our new engineering programs," said Matthew Dettman, team adviser.

The team advances to the national concrete competition June 14-16 in San Diego.
Last year, Western finished 10th in the nation, its best finish ever.

The academic portion of the event consists of using a design paper, an oral presentation and a visual display to communicate to judges how the project was completed including the canoe hull design, concrete mix design, construction process, research, management of the team members and budget management.

The paddling portion of the competition consists of sprint, distance and slalom races.
"This project is not about building a concrete canoe," Dettman said. "It's about building engineers. The canoe project teaches problem solving, teamwork and initiative."

Team members are Scott Neighbors, a Bowling Green senior; Chad Ford, a Bowling Green senior; Clay Ellis, a Beaver Dam senior; Luke Ritter, a Bowling Green junior; Jason Sparks, a Woodburn senior; Valerie Lynch, a senior from County Cork, Ireland; Shawn Herman, a Bowling Green senior; Darren Wheat, a Scottsville senior; Jon Diemer, a freshman from Franklin, Tenn.; Ryan Pregel, a senior from Gallatin, Tenn.; and Jerod Kaufman, a senior from Kenai, Alaska; Deneatra Flener, a Morgantown junior; Brian Bidwell, a senior from Conneaut, Ohio; Chris Bates, a Sacramento senior; and Matt Shockley, a Mount Washington junior.

More information is available at the event's website www.wku.edu/concretecanoe.

For more information, contact Matt Dettman at (270) 745-2462. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via E-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.