A group of 15 trucks filled with corn pulled up to the Mid-Missouri Energy ethanol plant just outside Malta Bend Wednesday, grinding through a thick layer of mud from repeated rains and heavy machinery, to bring the first delivery of corn to Saline County's stake in a budding industry.

"We've been looking forward to this day for years," said MME board member and local farmer Brian Miles. "This facility is incredible."

Miles and other board members drove portions of their harvests up for the event on Wednesday, driving their big rigs one by one over a grain pit for de-posit, dropping up to 925 bushels apiece through a grate in the floor.

MME board member David Swearingen lets loose a truck load of corn at the ethanol plant west of Malta Bend. The farmer-owned cooperative hopes to begin production at the facility by February, processing millions of bushels of corn into the alternative fuel source ethanol. The project is more than a month ahead of schedule. [Click to enlarge]

While previously the plant was scheduled to begin production around March 15, Billy Gwaltney, general manager of the plant, said grinding corn could begin as early as Jan. 31, marking the beginning of the process that will produce ethanol.

"From kernel until we have a product to sell, I would say [production takes] 10 days, seven to 10 days," MME President Ryland Utlaut said.

As workers manned the plant, getting to test drive the facility's receiving center, the corn dropped by board members worked its way into one of two massive silos designed to store 200,000 bushels each. The plant plans to process millions of bushels of Missouri's second-largest crop into fuel each year.

"This place is going to use a lot of corn," board member Joe Brockmeier said. "Instead of shipping it out, we're going to use it here."

Most of that corn will come from the 729 farmers who laid down their money to help construct the plant.

Gwaltney credits the board members with much of the progress at the plant. "The board did a lot of things right when they started this," he said. "It took all of them to get us here."

Pipes, silos and tanks make up the majority of visible components at the soon-to-be-producing ethanol plant near Malta Bend. Board members brought 15 trucks of corn to the facility as the first kernels to be converted to fuel by the farmer-owned cooperative on Wednesday. Grinding is planned to begin around Jan. 31. [Click to enlarge]

Members beamed with pride over the facility.

"We're tickled to be this far with it," said board member Ed Dysart, another local corn grower. "I guess it's been more like a dream for a lot of us, and here it is."

"I think ethanol will be a lot bigger in the future than it is now," Dysart said. "It'll be the way of the future."

Contact Matt Heger at

marshallbusiness@socket.net