Dirt scraper from Dexter goes to Antarctica

When Dennis Brown of Dexter, Mo., was inventing a piece of equipment a few years ago to level ground that has been excavated, he most likely wasn't giving any thought to the needs for leveling ice in Antarctica.

But one of Brown's machines, adapted for use on ice and in temperatures of 60 degrees below zero, is on its way to the bottom of the Southern Hemisphere.

Raytheon Co., which operates research projects in Antarctica, heard about Brown's scraper and decided to see if it could be used to build roads and runways out of ice.

With a few changes -- the ice scraper has skis instead of wheels -- the machine was ready and is being shipped by way of New Zealand.

Hats off to Brown for coming up with a solution to his own dirt-moving problem and for finding a way to make the same idea work for Raytheon in the Antarctic.