McFarlane employees craft patriotic message out of steel

A piece of farm equipment is making a patriotic statement with a red, white and blue metal sculpture of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima.

It is also hoped the piece will sell at auction and fund local veterans’ participation on Honor Flights.

The project was driven by employees at McFarlane Manufacturing in Sauk City. They manufacture agriculture, structural steel and transport equipment. When the employees heard about the need for donations to send local veterans on Honor Flights, they developed a plan to help.

“Once we got to the point where we said all or nothing, meaning if we do this we’re going to donate the entire amount of money to the cause, everyone’s hand went up and that was just a touching moment to see that the staff was that committed to doing something like this,” said Todd Lassanske, general manager of McFarlane Manufacturing.

A team of welders volunteered their time to build the piece. Hundreds of hours of work were put into creating the final piece of work.

The piece will be part of an online auction that will go live in early August and close on Aug. 28. The hope is the piece will sell at auction for more than $50,000. All the proceeds will go directly to fund local veterans’ participation in Honor Flights.

Donations for Honor Flights are also being collected at the McFarlane store in Sauk City.