It's that time of the year again. Time to recall the basement you thought would never end; that basement that had you pulling your hair out; the basement you hope you never see again - yes, it's the "Basement from Hell" competition.

We had 8 excellent entries last year. Balmer Brothers Concrete Works of Akron, Pennsylvania was crowned the winner in 2000 with a 29,000 square foot (yes that is the correct figure) beauty with lots of angles and wall heights of up to 18-ft. Size isn't necessarily the determining factor. Complexity, shapes, elevation changes, wall thickness variations, and a host of other factors go into determining the winner. Votes will again be cast be attendees at the World of Concrete and the winner will get a special prize in addition to lots of notoriety.

Entering is simple. You must be a member of CFA in good standing, you must have several fairly good photographs (preferably color) of the basement under construction, and you must write a brief description of the project (one page is sufficient) depicting why your project is worthy of the award.

The winners (and many of the entries) will be published in the newsletter and submitted to other periodicals for publication. Concrete Construction, PBF, and other national magazines have published the winners in the past. The deadline for receiving entries in the CFA offices is November 1. We need time to prepare the boards for the WOC booth and we would also like to publish all entries in the newsletter to encourage voting at the booth. The CFA also gets good name recognition from the contest. If you don't want to do it for yourself, do it for the CFA.