Thank a lineman - WELCOME | McKenzie...

www.mckenzieelectric.com

908 4th Ave. NE Watford City, ND Outpost - Killdeer, ND

701-444-9288 | 800-584-9239

APRIL 2016

Thank a

lineman

Stop by McKenzie Electric Cooperative’s office to write a thank you note, message us on Facebook or email your thanks to [email protected]. Let’s show the hardworking McKenzie Electric linemen that we appreciate all they do to keep the power on!

www.mckenzieelectric.com McKENZIE ELECTRIC NEWS , APRIL 2016 C1

Thompson selected for Youth Tour

Isaac Thompson was chosen as the winner for the 2016 Youth

Tour to Washington, D.C., after writing his excellent essay on the importance of cooperative commitment to community earned him the free trip.

Here is his essay:Most of Watford City is supplied

by McKenzie Electric Cooperative. Watford City began as a small town and was little more than a small town just a decade ago. In 2008, advancements in hydraulic fracking forever changed Watford City and put it on the map as a town that could make anyone go from rags to riches if they were willing to work hard to accomplish these goals. The town grew from a population of 2,000 to nearly 9,000 people within a decade.

This “Life in the Bakken” has dramatically increased the need for an affordable, dependable and far-reaching power supply. McKenzie Electric Cooperative began meeting these needs in 1945. With its headquarters in Watford City, the company was determined to meet the growing needs of its community.

McKenzie Electric now has over 3,800 miles of distribution lines and 30 electric substations. The cooperative serves thousands of members in the community and provides the power necessary to run an industrialist economy. Over 80 percent of the power supplied goes toward commercial and industrial use. Without the dependable power supplier, these businesses could not function, and many jobs would not have been created. No power leads to the inability for Watford City to function nearly as successfully as it

does today, and with power, Watford City is the perfect place to accomplish the “American Dream.”

Watford City can directly attribute its success to the commitment that our local cooperative has had and still has for our community. This company has well educated is employees, and is constantly searching for new ways for educational outreach in our schools. McKenzie Electric has been serving ranchers, farmers, truck drivers, roughnecks and clerks for over 70 years. Businesses have come and go in the Bakken, but McKenzie Electric is here to stay, and with that, give the necessary support to the community for years to come.

The trip will take place June 11- 17, and will take the students through many of the amazing sites and national treasures that Washington, D.C., has to offer. From dinner at Mount Vernon, to exclusive tours of the memorials and the Smithsonian Museum, to a play at the Kennedy Center, this

is definitely going to be the trip of a lifetime and it’s all sponsored by your local electric cooperatives. Isaac says that he is looking forward to the trip because he has never been to Washington, D.C., before, and it will provide a new experience for him.

Isaac, a junior at Watford City High School, was inspired to apply for the Youth Tour after a meeting with a teacher who encouraged him to apply for the trip by submitting an essay. Isaac says that he is a competitive student, so the opportunity to “win” an essay contest intrigued him the most.

Washington, D.C., isn’t the only trip that Isaac is looking forward to this year. He’s also planning a family camping trip to Minnesota and planning to visit some family in California, before the start of his senior year.

After high school, Isaac is looking forward to pursuing a law degree, so that he can continue to put his competitive nature to good use! n

C2 APRIL 2016 , McKENZIE ELECTRIC NEWS www.mckenzieelectric.com

#

71st Annual Meeting“Serving with a Strategy”

JUNE 21, 2016 5 P.M. OUTLAWS LOWER BALLROOM 120 N. MAIN ST. WATFORD CITY, ND

Sign Up Today, and get $10Your Cooperative Offers Automatic Bill Pay by Bank or Credit Card!

Forget mailing in your payments each month, let us take care of that for you! Plus, we’ll even give you a $10 credit toward your next bill!

As an added bonus, all of our members that are signed up for automatic payments will be entered for a grand prize drawing at the annual meeting on June 21, valued at $400! *Must be Present to Win

Just fill out your information and return to us with your next payment; we’ll take care of the rest!

________________________________________________________Member Name________________________________________________________Member Address

________________________________________________________Routing number or type of credit card and expiration date________________________________________________________Bank account number / credit card number

Please indicate how you would like your funds deducted: Check One

¨ Bank Account ¨ Credit Card ( Visa or Mastercard )

________________________________________________________Signature_____________________________Date

________________________________________________Account Number

*Please Note: Automatic Deductions typically go into effect AFTER the next bill that you receive from McKenzie Electric. Therefore, you may still have one more pay by check, before the automatic deductions go into effect. Thank you for Signing Up for Automatic Bill Pay with McKenzie Electric Cooperative!


The story begins, actually, with a woman who loves music. Ethelyn Basol, Diane’s mother,

would sit down to watch “The Tony Orlando and Dawn Show” every Tuesday night in the mid-1970s.

“I remember it was Tuesday nights,” Diane recalls. “Because I would go to call her and then think ‘Well, I can’t call her right now. She’s watching Tony Orlando and she won’t pick up the phone.’ ”

Tony Orlando, who is best known for

his hits, “Knock Three Times” and “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” handsome and charismatic, was Ethelyn’s favorite singer.

Diane, Ethelyn’s only daughter, describes her mother as a woman who holds fond memories about being in the harmonica band in grade school, playing the saxophone in high school, the organ at the nursing home and who, when she moved into assisted living in her 80s, started a band.

“She played the organ in a little

band,” Diane remembers. “They would get together and have jam sessions at Hillside Court. ... They would tape a lot of it.”

Today, Ethelyn’s organ sits in her room at the Good Shepherd Home in Watford City. Diane, who lives in town, visits her mother almost every day. She converted those tapes into CDs and when she visits, they’ll often play them and reminisce.

“She’ll say, ‘I haven’t been able to find new band members to play with here,’ ” Diane says. “And I’ll tell her, ‘Well, it probably wouldn’t be the same.’ ”

And so the scene is set: an aging woman with a passion for music and a daughter who helps keep her memories afloat.

It’s a recipe that seemed to save Ethelyn’s life last spring when she fell ill with pneumonia, sending her to the hospital clinging to life, her family preparing for the end.

“I remember one night I was sitting with the nurse in Mom’s room, trying to get her to eat and we were talking about our favorite singers,” Diane recalls. “I said to Lisa, the nurse, ‘Well you know who Mom’s favorite singer is? It’s Tony Orlando!’ And that’s when things got started.”

Lisa looked up the singer on the Internet and printed off an 8x10 photo of Orlando and taped it to her hospital tray. Ethelyn’s eyes lit up.

“She’d point to it and say, ‘Isn’t he handsome?’ ” Diane remembers. Diane went home and downloaded Orlando’s music to an iPod.

“There she was with her bright pink and blue headphones laying in her hospital bed, 80-some pounds, her little feet going to Tony Orlando,” Diane says.

After seeing Ethelyn’s reaction to the music and memories of her favorite singer, Lisa suggested to Diane that they reach out to Orlando in some way. So the nurse posted a message to Tony Orlando’s Facebook fan page about Ethelyn and Lisa got a reply from Jenny-Rose, Tony Orlando’s daughter.

“You know, all we have is the moment. That’s all any of us have.” This is what Diane Defoe said when people told her she shouldn’t do it. Her 95-year-old mother was too frail to take across the state to see her favorite singer in concert. And besides, she wouldn’t remember anyway. But that’s the end of the story.

The gift of musicBY JESSIE VEEDER SCOFIELD


“Lisa asked if she could have my phone number because Jenny-Rose was going to have her dad call me,” Diane laughs. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, Tony Orlando is going to call me?’ ”

And he did indeed. Diane was at the hospital with her mother when her phone rang.

“He asked if he could talk to her, wondering if she would be able to hear him,” Diane says.

So she turned up the phone volume, put it up to her mother’s ear and Tony Orlando, Ethelyn’s favorite singer, sang “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” just for her.

A few days later, a big box of Tony Orlando memorabilia arrived in Ethelyn’s hospital room, including all of his TV shows on DVD, 12 CDs of his music, ornaments, T-shirts and three 8x10 autographed photographs, one for Ethelyn, one for Diane and one for Lisa.

“She was in heaven,” Diane recalls. And the whole hospital got in on it,

dancing to Tony Orlando’s music in the lab, singing to her, playing it for her and admiring his photographs, until, little by little, Ethelyn got better.

And Jenny-Rose stayed in touch, sending texts to check in on Ethelyn and requesting photos that she could send along to her dad. That spring, Diane even worked with Jenny-Rose on flying Orlando into Minot on his way to a concert in Wisconsin that spring, but a bad storm prevented the trip from taking place.

“I really think he would have come her to see her if it wasn’t for the weather,” Diane says. “That’s the kind of man he is.”

If you ask Diane, she will tell you she didn’t think her mother was going to recover that spring. The family gathered and plans were made.

“Oh, I know it’s God and medicine, but to give her something to look forward to, a reason to smile, I know that played a big part,” she says.

And so, in December, when her mother was back in the home, back to watching Tony Orlando DVDs and

listening to CDs of her old band, Diane started checking to see if Orlando had any concerts in the area and discovered that he was going to be in Devils Lake.

Fifteen years ago, Diane surprised her mother with a trip to see him in concert for the first time and remembers her tears of excitement. She wondered if she could pull it off again, but with her mother so fragile and suffering from disorientation and memory loss, she decided it would be too difficult.

“Then I went to visit one day…and she says, ‘Oh, I wish I wasn’t so old and I could see Tony Orlando one more time,’ ” Diane says. “I looked at the nurse and she looked at me and I said ‘We’re going!’ ”

With the help of her daughter Penny and her husband, the tickets were purchased and plans were made.

“I texted Jenny, ‘We’re going to see your dad!’ ” Diane says. Jenny-Rose replied with a promise of free tickets and plans to meet Orlando backstage.

When the day came to take the trip, Diane decided to, again, surprise her mom.

“I picked her up from the nursing home and told her ‘We’re busting you out of this place,’ ” Diane laughs.

And so they did. And when they got to the concert at Spirit Lake Casino, they sat in the front row and watched Tony Orlando take the stage and Diane

watched her 95-year-old mother’s mouth drop.

After the concert, Jenny-Rose arranged for the family to be taken backstage and it was there that Ethelyn finally got to meet the man whose music had her tapping her toes for decades.

“He talked to her for a half hour. He hugged her. He told her she was beautiful,” Diane says. “He said, ‘We’re no longer fan and entertainer, we’re now friends.’ And then he gave her a kiss! It was unbelievable.”

Afterwards, the group went into the casino and Diane put $20 in a slot machine for her mother and Ethelyn sealed that kiss by winning a sweet $460.

And that’s where this story ends, in the hotel room where a mother and a daughter, tucked into bed with the lights out, talked and reminisced into the early hours of the morning about an unbelievable and unforgettable night.

“I didn’t care if she remembered it tomorrow, if she was happy in the moment, it was worth it,” Diane says. “But she does. I was out at the home yesterday and it’s all she can talk about.”

Yes, this story ends here, but Ethelyn, with her daughter by her side, has more of her story to write.

Because when she turns 100, Tony Orlando promised to pay her a visit to help her celebrate. n


February 25, 2016The regular meeting of the McKenzie

Electric Board of Directors was held at the Headquarters Building in Watford City, North Dakota. Directors present were: Clayton Monsen, Rondee Hanna, Travis Thompson, Ray Tescher, Glen Houghton, Cameron Wahlstrom, Tim Wasem, Donald Link and Ken Sanford. CEO John Skurupey, Attorney Dennis Johnson and staff personnel of McKenzie Electric were also present. The meeting day began with a tour of the new headquarters building project.

PRELIMINARIES: The agenda for the meeting, minutes of the previous board meeting and minutes of a telephonic meeting were approved by the Board of Directors. The Board ratified action taken on the telephonic meeting. Director expenses were also approved.

DIRECTOR DISCUSSIONS: The Board engaged in a lengthy review and discussion of proposed revised Board policies. After review, policies approved were: Action by Individual Directors, Confidentiality, Communications, Investments/Deposits/Petty Cash, Donations, Capitalization, Board Meeting Dates, Executive Sessions, Director Insurance, NRECA Annual Meeting, Hazard Recognition, Attorney Fees & Duties. Policies deleted were: Meeting Room, Contract Work, Investment Policy, Membership in Associated Organizations. Two policies were held for further review. The Board discussed the Director election bylaw and requested Attorney Johnson to review and recommend changes. Jerry Samuelson, Dennis Johnson (former director) and Jim Tveter met with the Board to discuss the proposed renovations to the Veterans’ Park and to seek a donation. The Board approved a donation to the Veterans’ Park.

ASSOCIATED ORGANIZATIONS: Director Donald Link reported on the recent North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives (NDAREC) executive board meeting. Items of interest included a report on the study committee reviewing ND One-Call, federal legislation and NDAREC’s manager search.

POWER SUPPLY: Ray Tescher reported on the recent Upper Missouri Power Cooperative (UMPC) board meeting and discussed several issues. Tescher also reported on issues

related to the Mid-West Electric Consumers Association.

ATTORNEY’S REPORT: Attorney Dennis Johnson reported on several items including substation land purchases and contract revisions.

CEO REPORT: CEO John Skurupey reported on a recent billing issue with a member that has been resolved. Skurupey reported on the RESCO board meeting and also provided information regarding Basin’s proposal to change their cost allocation between demand and energy.

OFFICE REPORT: Financial and statistical reports for January were reviewed with the Board along with a budget-to-date comparison and the comparative cash report. A review of the headquarters project and project to date expenses were provided to the Board. An update was given on delinquent accounts in light of the slow-down in the economy.

ENGINEERING REPORT: A report was given on the progress of the headquarters building, fleet management, asset management, cybersecurity, substation issues, mapping and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition).

OPERATIONS/CONTRACT MANAGEMENT REPORT: An update was provided on projects currently being worked on by MEC contractors and a work order progress report. The report also indicated the following: MEC energized Oakdale Substation, the 115-kV Little Knife to Oakdale transmission line was energized, progress is being made on the Blue Buttes conversion from 7,200 volts to 14,400 volts and crews received training in First Aid and CPR. Crews continue to respond to outages, maintenance issues and work order projects.

SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR: An update was given on the continuing process to develop policies and programs for MEC to become NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) compliant – staff is finalizing documents outlining tests required on qualifying Bulk Electric System assets, the Asset Management Program continues to be populated, staff is reviewing a one-line switching diagram and competing inventory of all assets falling under NERC. An update was given on the status of

substation land acquisition and the progress of right of way acquisition for transmission projects.

MEMBER SERVICE REPORT: The winner of the Youth Tour essay contest was Isaac Thompson, Watford City, son of Kerry and Rachel Thompson. MEC will be participating in the Williston Farm & Ranch Show March 15-16. The annual meeting date is scheduled for June 21, 2016, at Outlaws’ Bar & Grill in Watford City.

NEXT MEETING DATE: The next meeting date was set for March 30, 2016, at the Watford City Headquarters building.

ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. n

Board report

Tescher

Link

Hanna

Thompson

Wahlstrom

Sanford

Monsen

Houghton

BOARD OF

DIRECTORS

Wasem

908 4th Ave. NEWatford City, N.D. 58854

Phone: 701-444-9288Toll-free: 800-584-9239

OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS:Clayton Monsen, Chairperson Director, District 2B, Arnegard .................. 586-3336 Donald Link, Vice Chairperson Statewide Director Director, District 2A, Alexander ............... 828-3427

Rondee Hanna, Sec.-Treas. Director, District 2C, Watford City ......... 675-2516

Travis Thompson, Director-At-Large Director, District 1C, Charlson ................. 675-2373 Upper Missouri G&T Director

Cameron Wahlstrom Director, District 1A, Alexander ............... 770-6631

Ken Sanford Director, District 1B, Watford City .......... 842-2581

Ray Tescher Director, District 3A, Beach ....................... 565-2342

Glen Houghton Director, District 3B, Grassy Butte ........... 863-6606

Tim Wasem, Director, District 3C, Halliday ................... 938-4376

GENERAL MANAGER/CEO:John Skurupey701-570-3542

Web page: http://www.mckenzieelectric.com

Email: [email protected]


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