POWELL - The first loads of sugar beets for 2007 began arriving at the Powell beet dump off Road 10 and U.S. Highway 14-A in early October.

At first glance, it seems to be a pretty simple process: Trucks loaded down with beets drive up and dump their loads.

But a closer look provides a much more complicated picture.

Trucks arriving at the dump make their first stop at the scale house, where their loaded weight is recorded. Jan Hammond scans each truck's identification card, then records the truck's weight and gives the driver a copy.

For specified loads, Hammond also provides an identifying tag that will be attached to a sample bag. The bag is sent to Billings, Mont., where the sugar content will be tested.

The drivers then pull forward and wait their turn to dump their sugar-beet loads onto a conveyor system on the beet dump piling machine.

There are two dumping stations at the piler: one for trucks that dump from the rear and the other for side-dumping trucks.

Manning the piler are operator Andres Martinez and his wife, Johanna, who signals drivers when to move up and dump their loads.

Andres Martinez controls the conveyor system, making sure the beets get up a chute, past the screen that separates the beets from rocks, sand, mud and beet tops, and on to the conveyor on the piler arm. He swings the piler arm across the width of the growing pile, making sure the top of the pile is level all the way across.

At age 26, Martinez, of Texas, already is an experienced operator. He has been around them since he was a child, when his father ran pilers in Worland, Greybull and Manderson.

"The first time I saw these machines, they let us play with toy cars around them," he said. Now safety regulations prohibit that.

Once in place at the dumping stations, drivers send their sample tags in small plastic tubes through a vacuum system, much like a mini version of a drive-through bank teller station.

The system delivers the tubes to Sherrie Hettinger, who takes the tags and puts them inside pockets on the side of sample bags made of heavy material. Once the beets from each load begin their journey up the chute, she puts the appropriate bag under a large pipe and pulls a handle that diverts some of the beets through the pipe and into the bag.

She then ties the bag shut and tosses it into a waiting bin.

Hettinger enjoys working at the beet dump, though the 12-hour days get long, and she works in all kinds of weather, good and bad.

"I work with great people," she said, "and by the end of the harvest, I've added some muscle."

Besides taking samples, Hettinger also controls the height of the piler arm, raising it as the pile grows.

The piler has hundreds of moving parts, all of which must operate properly for the piler to work. Farmers and the Western Sugar Cooperative are counting on that.

For the last 18 years, Gary Cline has worked to make sure the piler operates smoothly.

Cline is responsible for maintenance on five of the 10 pilers in the Big Horn Basin during the beet harvest season.

One day, Cline stopped by the Powell station, listening and watching at several places to make sure the machine was functioning properly. Then he climbed up to the top and watched the beets work themselves through the process.

"Gary knows," said Andres Alvarez. "He stands by the machine, and he knows what's wrong."

Once each dump-truck load completes its journey through the piler, the driver pulls forward to another conveyor belt on the side. The belt then dumps the tares - waste materials from the load - back onto the truck.

Then the driver heads back to the scale house, where Hammond again weighs the truck and its small load of tares. The difference between the original weight and the second weight is the amount of beets offloaded from the truck.

Again, Hammond gives the driver a receipt, and the computer adds the information to each farmer's contract record.

"Before the computer system, it used to be a major paper shuffle," she said. "There was a loading receipt and a delivery record, and they were filled out by hand."

Hammond said working at the beet dump is a good part-time job for a retiree.

"You work a lot of hours in a short period, but it doesn't stretch on all year."

But, she added, "It's intense while it's going on."