Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation Presents Their Highest Honor for a Retired Employee, The Honored Cooperator Award, to David Teague

For Immediate Release

Contact: Renee R. Whitener, Director of Corporate Communications, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, Phone: (828) 758-2383; Pager: 1-800-471-1323; E-mail: Renee Whitener

Boone, North Carolina (November 15, 2001) – Blue Ridge Electric Membership Cooperation recently presented David Teague of Boone with the highest honor the company gives to a retired employee: the Honored Cooperator Award.

David Teague was presented with an engraved clock to honor his exemplary 35 years of service to Blue Ridge Electric during the company’s employee service awards celebration held recently at the Broyhill Inn and Conference Center in Boone. The annual ceremony recognizes employees for Blue Ridge Electric and its subsidiary, Blue Ridge Energies, for service milestones. Special recognition awards are also announced.

The Honored Cooperator Award was created to recognize a retired Blue Ridge employee that contributed in an outstanding way to the cooperative and personally worked to foster the principals and philosophy of Blue Ridge Electric among its members. Blue Ridge Electric Membership Cooperation was founded in 1936 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Administration (REA). The program gave rural residents the means to provide themselves with power by forming their own member-owned, cooperative utilities companies; they put in the poles and strung power lines themselves and they each had a share in the cooperative.

Former co-workers of David Teague say he carried that same Blue Ridge Cooperative philosophy into work everyday. Beginning the day he was hired as a truck driver trainee, at $1.38 per hour, in April of 1963; to the day he retired, as a crew leader in July of 1998, Teague always provided the highest in customer care to Blue Ridge Electric members, and was respectful of their property.

In his years at Blue Ridge, Teague worked his way up to heavy truck driver, apprentice lineman, lineman and was promoted to crew leader in 1973. Glenn Grubb, director of purchasing and facilities at Blue Ridge Electric, says Teague was a crew leader when Grubb began his career at Blue Ridge in the warehouse. Grubb says Teague was always exactly the kind of employee any company would love to have.

“David Teague is the best, all around, good fellow. He was good with employees, good with our members and he loved his job,” said Grubb.

“He was always willing to lend a hand to someone,” added Harold Huffman, Watauga District operations manager. “Not only was he excellent in his job, he helped everyone else do their job the best they could. If any lineman needed someone to fill in on their ‘on call’ days, David would always be the first to volunteer to help out. He worked a lot of long, hard hours restoring power after storms, and never complained.”

In his position as crew leader for the Blue Ridge Electric lineman, Teague was instrumental in developing the underground system of installing power lines for Blue Ridge Electric.

“David was responsible for applying, mapping and installing the entire underground system in the Blue Ridge Watauga District,” said Huffman. “Largely due to David as well as to member demand, Watauga District was the fastest growing underground system in the company. He trained all of the employees in this district, and helped train the employees in the other districts as well.”

Teague was also well known across the company for his dedication to safety in the workplace at Blue Ridge.

“He was the most safety conscious employee there was,” said Grubb. “David made sure every man knew exactly what they were doing before they began any job.”

Teague was presented his prestigious award from Doug Johnson, chief executive officer of Blue Ridge Electric.

Blue Ridge Electric Membership Cooperation is a not-for-profit electric cooperative serving over 63,000 members in northwest North Carolina. It’s subsidiary, Blue Ridge Energies, provides propane, heating fuels, and commercial gasoline to a growing territory from offices in Lenoir, Boone, Hickory, West Jefferson, and Sparta.