South Central Power

Less than 36 hours after Hurricane Helene made landfall late on Sept. 26, an initial force of 40 lineworkers from 11 Ohio co-ops headed south.

When electric cooperatives in North Carolina and South Carolina put out the call for help after Hurricane Helene barreled through in late September, Ohio answered. 

When the Ohio group reached the Carolinas, what they found was shocking. In the western parts of those two states, Helene had left a mutilated landscape in its wake. Roads, bridges, power systems — in some places, even entire villages — had been washed entirely off Appalachian hillsides and into flooded valleys. Damage was widespread, and it was devastating.

Co-op members posing in front of a pole barn built by the company their family owns and operates.

The pole barn — as familiar a fixture on modern farms as a pickup truck — is an architectural innovation born in the 1930s, the result of a marriage of necessity and opportunity.

For decades, the pole barn has reigned supreme on American farms. But the pole-frame structures of today have come a long way from the simple pole barns of the Depression, says Caleb Miller, owner and president of MQS Structures in Lancaster. Pole framing remains a popular design for farm outbuildings, but these days, Miller’s company, a member of Lancaster-based South Central Power Company, may just as likely be using pole-frame construction to build the shell for a far more complex structure.

Ben Jones of South Central Power is finishing his associate degree through the COLT/WVU-P partnership. He plans to continue through the program and earn a bachelor’s degree.

When Brian Bick was fresh out of high school, he started taking college classes but soon discovered he didn’t enjoy spending his days in a classroom. He decided to pursue a career as an electric lineworker.

Higher-ed partnership puts co-op lineworkers on a path toward leadership.
South Central Power member Beth Murray found a love of training herding dogs after adopting a border collie with natural herding instincts.

Beth Murray didn’t quite know what she was getting into when she adopted her first border collie, a rescue, from the Parkersburg (W.Va.) Humane Society.

Beth Murray didn’t quite know what she was getting into when she adopted her first border collie.
Jody Williams, a key accounts representative at Lancaster-based South Central Power Company, performs job functions such as member service, business development, and event planning — even employee relations at times.

The jobs most people likely think of when they consider working at the local electric cooperative either require advanced electrical engineering degrees or involve climbing poles and working in potentially hazardous conditions — which might make working for the co-op seem e

Along with the aforementioned lineworkers and engineers, most co-ops employ:

Peggy Kelly (pictured at center) attends the Ohio Renaissance Festival both alone and with her family during the course of the event.

Peggy Kelly first attended the Ohio Renaissance Festival about 15 years ago.

The festival lasts eight to nine weeks, and Kelly, who is a season passholder, says she’ll typically attend six to eight times during that period. She attends often enough that she says her husband knows exactly where she’s headed if she gets up early — and that she’ll be gone for most of the day.

A small crowd gathers next to the Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives Education Building during the Farm Science Review to watch South Central Power Company’s live line safety demonstration.

It’s not unusual for the crew of lineworkers from Lancaster-based South Central Power Company to hang around and make small talk with attendees after they’ve finished their hourly live-wire safety demonstrations at the annual

“Our guys are really good about making sure they answer everyone’s questions, and they’ll stick around as long as they need to,” says Candi Fisher, member engagement coordinator at South Central Power, who coordinates the mobile safety demonstrations for the co-op. “They could tell this older gentleman wanted to talk to them and so they went over to say hello.”

“You saved my life,” the man said. 

“That’s not something you hear every day,” Fisher says. “But he was very insistent. He made a special trip there that day to thank the guys who had saved his life.”

Laurelville Fruit Farm sign

It was the antics of a wily and very hungry fox that serendipitously led to the creation of an apple-growing enterprise and cider mill that are still going strong more than a century later.

“My dad took over the farm after World War II,” he says, “and growing up in the ’60s, I remember working my tail off to help out. Some of my high school friends and I would get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and make a thousand gallons of cider before school started, and then jug it when we got home. But it was fun, we didn’t think of it as work.”

“It’s a joy to talk to people about astronomy,” says Hoehne. “I’ve been stargazing most of my life, and this park is a great way to bring others into the fold and get them interested in science in general.”

Getting Brad Hoehne to stand still for a photo isn’t easy.

Served by South Central Power Company, the park sits on an open patch of land within Hocking Hills State Park. It’s named for the Ohio-born-and-bred astronaut who was the first American to orbit the Earth. JGAP opened in 2018, but Hoehne had been thinking for years about creating a venue where the public could connect with the cosmos. “I got the idea in 2003,” he says.

The renewable, green energy source, generated and transmitted by Buckeye Power for OEC members, has been available since 2017 when the OurSolar program was launched.

The hours of bright sunshine that come with scorching Ohio summers often spur people to consider harnessing energy from the sky’s brightest star with rooftop solar panels.

Bright side

Demarco Deshaies of Rockridge in Hocking County decided to investigate solar as a backup after losing electric service for several days following a devastating February 2022 winter storm.