Local four-time champion is headed to Vegas for another competition

MIAMI, Okla. — It’s not unusual to try your hand at gaming when you go to Las Vegas.

But one local man will be putting everything on the line when he goes there next week.

There are a lot of construction workers in the Four States that can build a wall with bricks, but most of them can’t do it as quickly and as accurately as Miami-native Darian Douthit.

He built this wall in Las Vegas a few years ago and ended up winning a utility vehicle for it.

“The wall is 26 foot by 8 long and you lay both sides of the wall and really it’s just, you get one hour to lay as many bricks as you possibly can, as straight as you can,” said Douthit, four time champion.

Douthit is getting ready to compete in the Spec Mix Top Craftsman Competition in Las Vegas, Nevada next week.

An event he’s won four times already and is hoping to make it five.

While there aren’t any guarantees in competition at this level, but he knows one thing for certain, how he’ll feel when it’s all over.

“Honestly, the pain, the back pain, the arm pain, for an hour, it’s pretty brutal. About ten minutes in it you’re thinking ‘why did I do this?'”

Douthit first heard about the competition from an old instructor of his.

He learned his construction trade at the Afton Campus of Northeast Tech 34 years ago and has been laying bricks ever since.

“Oh it’s, it’s bragging rights for a year. It makes you feel good when you’re against all these guys and girls included, that are all over the country that have won their region.”

Whether he’s building a wall in Vegas or one here in the Four States, if it’s a job worth doing, he says it’s a job worth doing right.

Local bricklayer Darian Douthit looks at a house he is currently working on

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