The NvMA is proud to sponsor the University of Nevada’s Mackay Mucker Mining Team as they travel to Cornwall, England to compete in the International Collegiate Mining Games March 29-April 1. We were able to catch up with Austin Lemons and learn more about the team and competition.

Name: Austin Lemons
Year in School: Freshman
Major: Geological Engineer

What are the International Collegiate Mining Games?
The international mining games is an international completion between schools from the USA, UK, Australia, Brazil and other parts of Europe. Teams compete in 7 events and the team with the lowest cumulative time wins. There are men’s teams, Co-ed Teams, Women’s teams and Alumni teams. The events are Swede Saw (sawing a piece of timber), Gold panning, Mucking (shoveling dirt into an old ore cart), Hand Steel (old style of drilling used for blasting, use a hammer and chisel steel to drill a hole in concrete.), Surveying, Jack Leg, and Track Stand (building ore cart tracks)

What’s your favorite part of England so far? Does the team have anything fun planned?
England has been super fun! We have explored London and just got to Bath. My favorite parts were the Imperial War Museum and the Roman Baths! Stone Hedge is not very far away from Bath so we are planning on doing that too.

What made you decide to join the Mackay Muckers?
My Dad was on the team back when he went to UNR, and I have grown up going to Hand Steel competitions with him. So, I decided to try out and compete with the team!

What’s your favorite event?
My favorite event is Mucking, I love how hard such an easy looking event can be! I mean how hard can shoveling dirt be? I am also personally best at it.

What are your plans after graduation?
I am in Army ROTC at UNR so I hope to become an army engineer. And serve in the military for a few years before becoming a mining engineer.