Nothing keeps down a lineman

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” is a phrase long-associated with the United States Postal Service.

But if you ask anyone who receives electricity from a rural cooperative, I think most of us would agree that our linemen are the ones who best live that motto, storm after storm, outage after outage.

Only we’d need to tuck in a few more qualifiers like, “nor sandstorms nor blizzards nor ice storms nor tornados.”

Our linemen have had an unusually busy year in eastern New Mexico, especially Roosevelt County.

Jerry Partin, general manager for the Roosevelt County Electric Cooperative since 1991, said his crews have replaced 358 poles since December (including a slew of them last weekend) along the 2,805 miles of lines that feed our insatiable appetite for electricity.

“I remember more damage from individual ice storms,” Partin said, “but this is the most I can remember from repeated storms. The last eight months have been terrible.”

(By contrast, Farmers’ Electric Cooperative, which provides power for rural residents in Curry and six other New Mexico counties, has lost 52 poles this year).

My family has been part of the RCEC since those “high lines” first made their way down country roads sometime after Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act in 1936.

In a lifetime of association with the RCEC linemen, our family has never had a bad experience. Not one.

“It’s amazing how good a crew we have,” Partin said, adding that he receives letters “all the time” from people his linemen have assisted, often with problems in no way associated with electricity ... changing a flat tire, rescuing a stranded motorist, herding a stray back into a pasture.

Partin is also proud to point out a row of United Way Pacesetter awards earned by the RCEC — as an organization, they were the number one giver in 2016-17, averaging almost $500 per person.

The 40-employee RCEC watches over about 60,000 power poles in Roosevelt County, Partin said. When a storm passes through — or worse yet, when it settles in and rages for hours on end — linemen race into the teeth of it, often working around the clock in dreadful conditions.

Somehow, even when we call these guys at 2 a.m. in a blizzard, they are unfailingly polite and concerned and thoughtful.

If you’re in the market for a superhero, you need not head to a movie theater or video store.

Instead, drive down a country road after a storm, and look up. Those guys getting pummeled by wind and rain while clinging to 30-foot tall poles are the best there are.

Linemen are superheroes in hardhats.

Betty Williamson will never take electricity for granted. You may reach her at: [email protected]