Frankie Tidwell, right, of CNC Stonecrafters, presents a stone bobcat display to PCHS Principal Gary Odom.

By Nicole Burns for the FCT

A Phil Campbell company’s Made In Franklin display now guards the PCHS trophy case.

The Made in Franklin Expo is a two-day event held each fall at Russellville Middle School. The Franklin County Development Authority and the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce organize the event as a way for local industries to show off what they do and the products and materials produced locally to the public. This year, the expo also offered a job fair component. Each year, Franklin County and Russellville City Schools send the junior and senior classes to give students an opportunity to learn more about the local industry and what Franklin County manufactures.

For Frankie Tidwell of CNC Stonecrafters, Made in Franklin was a great time to show off his company’s exclusive CNC Router. Tidwell and his crew used the piece of equipment to carve images of a bobcat and tiger into pieces of stone for display. After the expo, the company donated those stone displays to Russellville’s Golden Tigers and Phil Campbell’s Bobcats.

While custom made countertops is CNC Stonecrafter’s main focus of business, Tidwell said they like to spread their wings and experiment with their exclusive technology to see how it can be stretched and used in new ways. “We have done quite a few images in our spare time to see what we can do with it,“ said Tidwell. To create the images donated to the local schools, Tidwell said his crew had to draw out the designed images by hand, and then load them into CNC Router’s software. It took a couple of hours to get the design from concept into a stone display.

At Phil Campbell High School, the new stone bobcat sits in the school’s trophy case outside the gym. Tidwell said that CNC could use this same technology for customers. All it takes is a little imagination.