Ohio electric cooperative leaders joined more than 2,000 of their counterparts from around the country in April to discuss legislative and regulatory concerns with members of Congress at the 2018 NRECA Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C.
The conference, held annually, allows co-op leaders to build relationships with policymakers that improve their members’ lives every day.
In a way, the scene was reminiscent of 1930s and ’40s rural America: two out-of-the-way villages getting electricity for the first time. This past March, however, the setting was a remote area of Central America, where a team of 17 linemen from Ohio electric cooperatives traveled to the villages of Las Tortugas and San Jorge, in northern Guatemala, on a humanitarian mission to supply electricity for the first time to the small villages.
You descend from a long line of walkers. Walking was a way of life for virtually all of your ancestors. Other forms of conveyance, from bicycles to jet propulsion, are, in the scheme of things, quite new to us.
This primal form of getting from one place to another is an elixir: it burns some calories, improves your heart’s health — and takes the wrinkle out of your brow.
There’s an idealistic nature about rural and small-town Ohio. People know their neighbors, they support their community, and they take care of each other when families face tough times. On its surface, it’s like Mayberry — but better, because it’s real.
With all of the wonderful aspects of small-town life in Ohio, however, there are challenges, and right now, one of the toughest of those is a growing struggle with mental health problems.
On August 4, 1879, before the sun rose over the craggy mountains in western West Virginia, the oil boomtown of Volcano turned into a “lake of fire.” By the time the blaze died, Volcano was almost gone. The post office, opera hall, bowling alley, saloons, and all but a few buildings had been reduced to ash.
The fire didn’t end Volcano’s existence right away, as a few remained to continue oil production, but what had been a bustling burg was on an irreversible path to becoming the ghost town that it is today.
“I’m just waiting for him to come in the door going, ‘Got ya, mom.’ He was good at playing jokes on us all — but I know he’s not actually coming. It’s like a nightmare.”
Mary Allison speaks through teary eyes about her son, Chris Landers. She was on vacation with her daughter last September when she got the call that Chris, a 41-year-old lineman from Cordell, Oklahoma, had been killed on the job — electrocuted after leaning into a power line he thought had been disconnected for repair.
It was 25 minutes past noon when I scored the last serving of the Friday lunch special — scalloped potatoes and ham — at the Auction Restaurant in Shipshewana, Indiana. Just seconds after I ordered, a young man sat down and asked for the special too. “It’s all gone,” said the waitress, a pleasant, middle-aged woman wearing an apron, plain blue dress, and white bonnet. “Well, I was wanting it all morning,” he complained, then settled for a prime rib sandwich.
