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BRIGHAM CITY — Power company employees and apprentices scaled tall, wooden poles with sturdy straps and boots equipped with climbing spikes, enabling them to safely get to the top. Judges, many with bushy beards and hard hats, held stopwatches and clipboards, noting how quickly and correctly each lineman performed.
The Brigham City Lineman Rodeo, organized by the Intermountain Power Superintendents Association, is meant to showcase the skills of Utah power companies' linemen, according to Jodi Lundberg, program coordinator and secretary of the association.
Thursday's event also helps assist and provide programs that will help linemen from across the state practice their trade in various circumstances — including the biannual rodeo, which alternates between competitions in northern and southern Utah, Lundberg said.
Salt Lake Community College also works with the association to provide apprenticeship programs that allow young adults to learn the lineman trade. Four apprenticeship teams competed in the event, Lundberg added, many of whom recently graduated and are looking for jobs.
Rhett Bigelow, Energy and Utility Programs manager at SLCC, noted that the rodeo gives them a chance to perform the work safely in a healthy, competitive environment. He said Brigham City provided the poles necessary for the competition.
"A lot of people don't know what a lineman does or who keeps the power on for them. They just know they flip the switch and it comes on, and if they don't, they call the fire company," Bigelow said. "This is a chance for them to show off to the public, and to each other, about what it is they actually do and how hard they work."
Some of the companies and linemen were watching the pre-apprentices work, deciphering who might stand out and make the cut to work as an apprentice at a power company, Lundberg said.
"The best work is when you get somebody's power on, and you see everybody's happy, and life is good again."
–Jacob Hundley
Twenty-one power company and apprenticeship teams competed Thursday from 15 different cities, stretching from places all over Utah to Nevada. The fastest, safest and most efficient linemen were honored for their performances, according to Cameron Carrigan, the Brigham City Lineman Rodeo chairman.
The winning team's company would receive a plaque, and individual stars would win a Geoff Olson Original Hand Scrimshawed Knife, Carrigan said.
Each team would work to add power to each pole, some competitors climbing, while others on the ground would support them and send them their tools.
"It's a good time to teach them their mistakes now when everything's de-energized — there's no potential risk. It's great; I love doing it," judge Jacob Hundley, a frequent judge at the rodeos and a Provo Power Company lineman, said.
Hundley has been a lineman since 2010, with his father-in-law working in the trade, and now his son — who also competes in the rodeo — works as an apprentice in Murray.
"It's like the third generation in the family doing line work, so it's pretty cool," Hundley said. "The best work is when you get somebody's power on, and you see everybody's happy, and life is good again."
Despite some of the gratifying work that came with helping people, Hundley added that the hardest part of being a lineman was being called away family — sometimes even missing anniversaries or birthdays — to provide that power.
Because power can go out at some of the most inconvenient times, such as during a storm or late at night, the workers are the first in line to resolve that issue, Bigelow said.
Being a lineman is no picnic when it comes to safety, Carrigan added; the workers face risks like losing a limb — or their life — from electrocution, serious injuries from falling off their pole and heightened stakes during dangerous weather.
To honor the families of these heroes, Lundberg said the event was created to allow the families to watch and support their fathers, husbands and sons compete.
"We try to open it up to families so that it's a family-fun, friendly event," he said. "Because that's what it's about — the family's support of all (the linemen)."
