Two Missouri S&T alumni are working on a project more than 150 years in the making.

Missouri S&T students and alumni work to save a 150-year-old farm near Licking, Mo.

Kevin Skibiski, CE’75, MS CE’76, and Rebecca Rost, Hist’05, are helping S&T professor Stuart Baur and his 15 students document and present a report on the early 19th century Piney River Heritage Farm.

The farm, part of the Mark Twain National Forest, is located outside Licking, Mo., and has 10 buildings on site, including a house, three barns and a washhouse. After the students made their measurements, Skibiski, associate vice president and office manager of Horner & Shifrin engineering firm, will submit a final report. Rost, preservation planner and grants manager in Missouri’s historic preservation office, will work on Section 106 compliance, which requires consideration of historic preservation in projects with federal involvement.

In Skibiski’s estimation, experience is the best teacher. “I could have done it myself, but I wanted them to do the work,” he says of the students’ documentation. “What I’m trying to do is help teach the students how to do a structural evaluation.”

For both Rost and Skibiski, it’s a chance to give back.

“Missouri S&T has always had a place in my heart because I learned who I wanted to be while there,” Rost says.