The 7.6 million pennies, encased in dried mud, have to be cleaned. So far Massengale has worked his way through about $7,300. "It's like eating an elephant," says Massengale, 60. "You do it one bite at a time."
Massengale's services came into demand after Oct. 4, when a tractor-trailer taking new pennies from the U.S. Mint in Denver to a San Antonio bank crashed near Snyder, Texas. Two people died, two were injured—and the coins burst out of their canvas sacks and into the dirt. Heavy rain soon hit the area, making, says insurance adjuster Beverly Brann-Whitlow, "the most expensive mud pies you've ever seen."
Brann-Whitlow found that banks didn't want the pennies because the dried mud would break coin-counting machines. A friend put her in touch with Massengale, who retired as Lubbock assistant city manager in 1998. Just for the challenge—and a $5,500 fee—he agreed to store and clean the pennies. Working with two helpers, he puts the mud through a homemade wire grid to winnow out anything without Abe Lincoln, then rinses the change in water and a mixture of vinegar and salt.
How did he come up with his solution? "On the Internet," says Massengale, who lives in Lubbock with wife Sharon, 58, a retired teacher. "I just went on the Google search engine and wrote in 'dirty pennies.' "
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