Using traditional skills to build a solid future, brick by well-placed brick, Lebanon High School junior Booker Steffey traveled to Las Vegas and returned a national masonry champion.
Booker won the Spec Mix Junior Bricklayer 500 Competition on Jan. 22, under the guidance of his instructor at the Russell County Career and Technology Center, Shannon Brooks, and his father, Keith, who mortared the bricks for his son during the competition.
The Spec Mix Bricklayer 500 World Championship is known as the Super Bowl of masonry. The junior competitors were challenged to build a wall without any craftsmanship deductions within 10 minutes.
“It has to be a certain quality,” Brooks said. For example, a brick cannot be turned the wrong way because the pattern must match. There must be no holes in the joints, and everything must be level. For each deduction, a brick is taken from the final count.
Booker brought home the title by laying 137 bricks.
“Everything’s got to be perfect,” said Booker, a self-proclaimed perfectionist. “You have to be right on, and if you’re not, it’s crooked and it looks bad. You have to be really particular with it.”
And fast. His accomplishment of laying 137 bricks in 10 minutes means he was laying a brick every four seconds or so. For context, a mason usually lays about 700 to 1,000 bricks in an eight-hour workday.
The competition is part of the World of Concrete and Masonry trade show, which attracts thousands of builders. The junior competition started in 2019 and mimics the adult competition on a slightly smaller scale.
Booker advanced to the Las Vegas competition by winning one of 20 regional events, the East Tennessee regional at the Appalachian Fairgrounds in Gray, Tennessee. The top 10 regional winners competed for the national title and a $1,000 cash prize. During the trip, Booker also visited the Hoover Dam and Red Rock Canyon and took in the Las Vegas Strip.
He became interested in brick laying as a high school freshman and pursued the program at the vocational school. He has worked with his father, who owns Steffey Construction, on several local projects, including a facelift of the Lebanon Fire Department building.
“My dad told me about it and I came out and checked it out and really enjoyed it. And then I ended up not being too bad at it,” Booker said.
This year was the first time Booker competed in the Bricklayer 500 competition, but he had successfully competed in Skills USA competitions, which challenge students in a variety of skills, from 3D animation to welding. When he was a freshman, he won state in the Skills USA masonry competition and placed sixth nationally. Last year, as a sophomore, he again won the state competition and placed second nationally, Brooks said.
“From the first day we laid brick, his wall was just outstanding. He just has a real knack for it,” Brooks said. “He’s also a very hard worker, absorbs everything and wants to do his best.”
Brooks has been taking his masonry students, who currently number about 40, to competitions since he started teaching at the Russell County Career and Technology Center 17 years ago.
“In 1985 I took masonry in this very classroom. I got a job and laid bricks for 22 years, and my instructor retired, and he told me I should apply for the job, and I did. And I’ve been here ever since,” Brooks said.
He is proud of the number of masonry students he teaches but pointed out that his is one of the few programs left in far Southwest Virginia vocational schools.
“As the instructors retired, they’ve done away with the programs,” Brooks said. When he meets other masonry instructors at state competitions, they usually have five or six students.
“Our classes are always full,” Brooks said.
For his senior year, Booker said he hopes to retain his regional and national championship titles. He already works with his father’s construction company on masonry projects and will probably continue that after graduation.
A Russell County native, he said his plans are to “stay around here and hopefully lay a bunch of bricks.”
