By OLIVIA BERGMEIER and NATE KING
Salina Post
Steve Heiser spreads a positive message by actively participating in the betterment of his local community. This resilient hero works diligently behind the scenes, shoulder to shoulder with neighbors and friends.
People in north central Kansas benefit greatly from the countless hours that community champions spend on tasks like picking up the garbage, farming the land, volunteering, nursing the sick, and maintaining our roads and electrical grid.
As we embark on this mission to thank the seldomly thanked, Salina Post invites you to open your hearts to the incredible stories of these unsung heroes — these Community Champions.
Steve Heiser
Steve Heiser, a snowplow driver for the Saline County Road and Bridge Department, arrives early on snow days to work, prepared to tackle slushy, snow-packed roads.
On a weather event day, he usually beats his coworkers to the shop and prepares snowplow 19-10, filling its tanks with hundreds of tons of salt and, sometimes, thousands of gallons of magnesium chloride for bitter-cold days.
"I'm usually one of the first ones here," Heiser said. "I'm just itching to get out there and start."
Heiser began snowplowing for Saline County a decade ago, but his experience stretches another decade before that.
READ MORE: Salina Post's Community Champions Vol. 1 — David Svaty
He first started snowplowing in Tulsa, OK, and after five years there, he moved to Kansas and snowplowed for the Kansas Department of Transportation across the state for another five years.
Heiser started at Saline County Road and Bridge in 2013.
"I love it," Heiser said. "I look forward to the accomplishment of doing my job, how well I can do it, and help the public be safe."
Long before he began scraping snow and ice off roads, Heiser was born and raised in Lincoln, KS, and joined the United States Army after high school for 24 years. Heiser said he served in Iraq and Saudi Arabia while in the Army.
After leaving military service, he moved to Oklahoma, where he lived for 20 years before returning to Kansas.
More than just clearing roads
The Saline County community named all of Road and Bridge’s snowplows last winter, and Snowplow 19-10, Heiser’s snowplow, is called “Subzero Swiffer.”
The fleet of snowplows also includes 17-2 or “Dwight D. Icenplower,” 232 or “The Big LaPlowski,” 230 or “Scoop Dog,” 238 or “Betty White Out,” 19-1 or “Snow Daddy,” 263 or “Darth Blader,” and 22-4 or “Snowy McSnowface.”
On snowy days, the Road and Bridge website provides a live map tracking each snowplow’s location.
Before the fleet leaves the shop during snow events, Saline County Road Superintendent Ted Sears makes decisions based on the weather.
“Once I make the decision and get everybody called in, the trucks have assigned routes,” Sears said. “Everybody knows where they’re going, so they just get loaded up and get going. We’ve got predetermined amounts of salt to put down based on the storm.”
Heiser covers the sixth route, which stretches from Assaria to Falun and to the county line. On Saturday, Nov. 25, Heiser helped with another course due to one of the other snowplows breaking down.
“I did mostly all the north, northwest and south, southwest,” Heiser said. “Saturday, I put in 220 miles and on Sunday, 180.”
For each mile, snowplows will usually spread around 250 to 300 pounds of salt per mile on a single-lane road and about 400 to 500 pounds on double-lane highways. When the weather is more severe, Sears said they will use around 800 pounds of salt per mile and use magnesium chloride alongside.
On Saturday and Sunday, Sears said they used 300 pounds of salt per mile, meaning Heiser likely spread about 60 tons across West Saline County and cleared 400 miles of blacktop throughout the weekend.
One aspect Heiser said he enjoys is his coworkers and leadership, citing the team's camaraderie. According to Sears, Heiser has a positive impact on the entire fleet.
“It’s easier for me to have people that want to come to work,” Sears said. “Amazingly enough, most of the guys want to come to work no matter how much they bellyache about it.”
“It gets infectious when people want to come in early, they see somebody coming in and they’ll want to come in, and it’s just a trickle-up effect.”
The Saline County Road and Bridge Department is currently hiring, looking for more snowplow drivers like Heiser to join the fleet. Visit the Saline County Road and Bridge website to learn more about available positions.
If one of these Community Champions in your life deserves a shout-out, Salina Post encourages you to nominate an everyday champion who has positively impacted you, your family, or your local community.
Nominations can be made by messaging Salina Post's Facebook page, or by emailing [email protected]
Please include the name of the person you wish to nominate and a brief statement explaining why they are a champion in their community.