Warren RECC
An Unusual Thank-you Dinner
July 1996
 When you work for
an electric utility you don’t exactly expect your customers to
treat you to a prime rib dinner when their power goes out. But that’s
exactly what people in Butler County did for workers in the
Morgantown district office of Warren Rural Electric Cooperative.
David Field
remembers it started with a conversation at church after a March 19
snowstorm knocked out power to nearly all the 8,100 co-op members in
Butler and Ohio counties. David, who owns Field’s Body Shop in
Morgantown, was chatting with Bobby Hunt, a retired employee of the
Tennessee Valley Authority, about the enormous effort the co-op
workers put in to get the electricity flowing again.
“There’s
a general appreciation in the community for what those people do
during this kind of weather, and the dangers that go along with it,”
says Bobby.
David says, “When
you’re out of power for three or four days it makes a fella pretty
thankful when it comes back on. Those people worked a lot of hours
for a lot of years. We wanted to buy them something, or take them to
dinner.”
The more people
heard about the idea, the more it began to grow. Maurice Cardwell,
who owns a restaurant at Powderly, said he could cater an event.
People started selling tickets. The tickets sold out, but the
organizers found a way to make more room. On April 4, 164 people
attended the thank-you dinner where the workers received a plaque
that reads, “Presented to WRECC employees in appreciation for the
years of dedicated service to the residents of Butler County.
Presented by those you serve.”
Warren Rural
Electric Cooperative, headquartered in Bowling Green and serving
more than 46,000 consumers in eight counties, faced huge snowdrifts
and then waterlogged fields as they worked to fix the more than 120
poles that fell under the weight of the late spring snow.
David says, “I
know those people got paid, but after a while when you’re up for
24 hours, an extra few dollars doesn’t mean a lot. They’re a
great bunch of people.”-Paul Wesslund |
