Withstanding Weahter's Worst
	Team Effort
	Editorial
	Wisconsin Favorites History, Aesthetics Mingle in Pump House Regional Arts Center

 

Withstanding Weather’s Worst
Cooperation Gets the Power Back On

   Somewhere in Florida last August, on his way to clean up hurricane damage to family property, Tim Clay came upon an odd-looking convoy. Stretching over half a mile along Interstate 75, a solid line of utility bucket trucks—the boom-equipped vehicles with insulated tubs used in power line maintenance—made its way toward the storm-ravaged areas. Some were from independent contractors, many from electric co-ops. “From the back end of the line, you couldn’t see the front,” said Clay, director of environmental and regulatory services for the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives. “It was a neat feeling. It’s what co-ops do when there’s trouble.”

   Pitching in when Mother Nature tears up another electric cooperative’s distribution system is indeed a co-op tradition, embodied in Wisconsin by the ROPE program—for Restoration Of Power in an Emergency. As of last December, the mutual assistance efforts of Wisconsin co-ops have been coordinated under the ROPE system for 37 years.

   People were no less willing to help before ROPE was organized in December 1967, but the standard procedure back then was for the manager of a storm-damaged co-op to call around to his neighboring electric co-ops until he got what he needed. That method begged for improvement, because if one co-op had enough trouble to need help, its neighbors were often in the same fix, and if power lines were vulnerable, phone lines were too.

One-Stop Shopping

   Try defining the ROPE program with a single idea, and it might be that when completing one phone call can be a challenge, one should be enough. At its headquarters in La Crosse, Dairyland Power Cooperative operates a 24-hour dispatch center with two-way radio communications. In the early days of the program, it became obvious that this would be an ideal command center when mutual assistance was needed.

   Another factor making Dairyland the logical nerve center is that its transmission system feeds power to nearly all the local distribution cooperatives serving the western half of Wisconsin along with three each in Iowa and Minnesota and one in Illinois. When there’s trouble locally, chances are Dairyland will have similar problems on its transmission lines or at least pick up indications of them on the room-sized, illuminated system map in its control room. The generation and transmission co-op is thus ideally situated to get an early picture of who is in distress and who is probably in the clear and available to help.

   But it’s up to the local manager to decide what’s needed and make the call. According to Garry Christopherson, Dairyland’s director of safety and security and coordinator for the ROPE program, that’s happened about a half-dozen times annually, on average, over the past several years.

   Procedures are well-established. Each electric co-op has a detailed ROPE manual covering working conditions, insurance, supervision, workmanship specifications, and other matters it wouldn’t do to make up in the field. Visiting crews are expected to show up with pretty much anything they’ll need, since their hosts probably aren’t prepared to equip them. But they’re considered employees of the host co-op, which pays their regular wages, living expenses, and other costs.

   The biggest ROPE deployment Christopherson remembers was the response to a 1991 southern Minnesota ice storm. Wisconsin crews were a large component of a relief force at times exceeding 180 visiting lineworkers, rebuilding facilities for Albert Lea-based Freeborn-Mower Electric Cooperative when ice “pretty much wiped out their system.”

   Especially within the Dairyland system, the aid flows both ways, Christopherson says, noting that Iowa and Minnesota cooperatives have sent people to north-central Wisconsin in recent years.

   The size of the affected area isn’t always what determines the intensity or difficulty of a recovery effort. Christopherson says local managers invoking ROPE assistance will “start deploying as soon as it’s reasonable to put people out there, depending on the weather.”

   That doesn’t mean waiting for what any of the rest of us might consider “reasonable” weather. For instance, “If you’ve got subzero temperatures out there, they’ll be trying to get people back on as soon as possible,” he explains, not mentioning what that implies for the line crews who have to do the job.

   But then, if you spend any time around line crews, it doesn’t take long to figure out that doing dangerous but vital work in miserable conditions is considered a badge of honor.

   Christopherson quickly saw the positive effects of that justifiable pride when he was still new to the job of ROPE coordinator. “When I first started I was pretty timid about calling a manager at two a.m., but I was amazed to find they’d get right on it and call me back within an hour ready to send people,” he said.

The Same, But Better

   Since the ROPE program came along 37 years ago, a lot has changed in the electric utility industry, mostly for the better. More sophisticated and powerful equipment allows line crews to work faster and more safely—two concepts that haven’t always fit well together.

   Obviously, communications have improved in ways that would have seemed like the stuff of James Bond back in the days when ROPE was first created. Telephone lines are less at risk than in the program’s early years, though in a major outage the phones can still be problematic as they’re not necessarily down but rather jammed with calls. Cell phones and pagers have made an immense difference, allowing dispatchers to keep in much closer contact with crews in the field and allowing them to be used much more efficiently.

   But alongside all the positive changes brought about by improved technology, the mission is the same, the basic pattern seems sound, and the ROPE program wouldn’t appear a likely candidate for a major makeover any time soon. It can’t be better said than in the plain-spoken words of Garry Christopherson, who just the other day told us, “It seems as though when we put the system into use, it works.”—Dave Hoopman

Team Effort
Clapps’ Activism Remembered

   Excited at the prospect of a Wisconsin native being tapped for the top job at the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), state electric cooperative leaders wanted to give President Kennedy’s appointee the red-carpet treatment. At the co-ops’ March 1961 national convention in Dallas, Texas, they proudly fashioned a sign to hang at a reception for the new REA administrator. It read, “Wisconsin Likes Norm and Analoyce. You’ll Like ‘em, Too.”

   Knowing Administrator-designee Norman Clapp and his wife, Analoyce, as they did, it was fitting for co-op delegates to emblazon both their names on the welcome sign.

   “That’s the way it always was,” observed Kaz Oshiki, a close friend and colleague of the Clapps for more than 50 years. “You didn’t just get Norm; you got the two of them.”

   Norman Clapp had a high-profile career in public service that included eight years at the helm of REA, three candidacies for Congress, and stints as secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and chairman of the Public Service Commission.

   “But he couldn’t have done it without her,” Oshiki continued. “Analoyce was such an important part of his life and career.”

In Her Own Right

   Maybe the same can be said about the spouses of many notable public servants. Yet when Analoyce—who survived her husband by six years—died this past December at age 90, obituaries that ran in such publications as the New York Times and Washington Post listed lofty accomplishments and contributions that were clearly her own.

   “She branched out on her own after his government service ended,” said Oshiki. “It’s another sign of how ahead of her time Analoyce was.”

   She served as one of the 28 founding members of the National Organization for Women, having recorded the minutes at the organization’s very first session in 1966. Analoyce was a writer/researcher on U.S. race relations for the Potomac Institute. She was a Washington-based freelance reporter for Features and News Syndicate in Chicago, the Milwaukee Sentinel, the Capital Times, and others during the later 1960s. She also served on the Capitol Hill staff of Representative Robert Kastenmeier from 1977 until retiring in 1982.

   “She was so good with people that we put her at the front desk. She had an effortless charm,” recalled Kastenmeier, who also cited her training as a journalist as being valuable to his congressional office. “We called her a “special assistant’ because could do so many things,” he said.

Journalism, Politics

   Analoyce and Norman both hailed from Wisconsin—she from Adams, he from Ellsworth. They first headed to Washington, D.C., in the late 1930s when Norman was working as an aide to Senator Robert LaFollete during the formative years of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA).

   Returning to Wisconsin in 1944, the Clapps settled in Lancaster and became publishers of the Grant County Independent newspaper. Norman was editor and Analoyce—who had majored in journalism at UW–Madison—was associate editor. Through prize-winning editorials and stories, one of the causes they helped champion was the fledgling rural electrification program.

   Analoyce continued in that job even after they sold the publication in 1958 when Norman ran, unsuccessfully, as a candidate for Congress. Grant Electric Cooperative (now Scenic Rivers Energy) hired Analoyce on a freelance basis in 1959 to edit the co-op’s monthly local pages in Wisconsin REA News, predecessor of this magazine.

   Norman ran for Congress again in 1960, and although he lost the race, he had favorably impressed the winner of the presidential election. In early 1961, Kennedy picked him to head REA. Interestingly, even though the couple’s place in the history of rural electrification was solidified with Norman’s selection, Analoyce was well-known within the program even before her husband’s appointment, thanks to her feisty reporting and clever turns of phrase exhibited in the pages of the REA News.

REA Legacy

   Norman’s tenure at REA—through both Kennedy and Johnson administrations—saw the agency enhance its role to help rural electric co-ops build power stations and transmission lines, all the while battling stiff opposition from private utilities.

   The Clapps returned to Wisconsin in the 1970s, where they continued careers in public service. However, it was as REA administrator that Norman left his greatest mark. After Norman’s death in 1998, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association historian Patrick Dahl noted, “More than any single figure or government official, it is Norman Clapp who can be credited with the emergence of the rural electric generation and transmission (G&T) program as we know it today.”

   Bringing much-needed electricity to the countryside was a daunting task, the success of which depended on the tenacity of individuals who contributed to the program’s success. Thanks in part to the unwavering commitment of partners like Norman and Analoyce Clapp, the cooperative movement remains strong and successful.—Mary Erickson and Perry Baird

Editorial
by Perry Baird

June’s Journey

   “The story of rural electrification is a story of a grassroots movement…but some of its biggest battles have been, and of necessity always will be, fought in Washington.”

   With that observation in her parting column to readers of Wisconsin REA News, June Kysilko packed her camera and notebook and headed off for a new career to do battle in the nation’s capital. Washington, she explained, was where she “could do the most good for the things in which I believe.”

   It was near the end of 1958, and Democrat Congressman Lester Johnson, who represented her home area near Cornell had just won re-election and needed a new press secretary. June fit the bill. Growing up in a farming family on Chippewa Valley Electric Co-op lines, she was attuned to both the plight of agriculture and the challenges facing rural electrification.

   Speaking of the interests she shared with her new boss, she wrote, “He thinks as I think about the importance and dignity of the family-type farmer, the small businessman, workers and retired people—the so-called ‘little folks’ who so often take a beating in today’s world of bigness.” An associate editor of the statewide electric co-op publication for the previous six years, June had come in contact with countless people across Wisconsin who matched that description.

A Pro At PR

   June Kysilko had majored in journalism at Iowa State and she was also a first-rate photographer—capabilities that brought her to the attention of local news media and Chippewa Valley Electric Co-op in the early 1950s. The co-op hired her to write stories for its local pages in the REA News, predecessor of this magazine.

   On the strength of those assignments, in 1953 June was hired by the Madison office of the publication. She edited a number of the subscribing co-ops’ local pages, took charge of the section devoted to family living, authored popular homemaking and commentary columns, wrote news articles, and traveled the state to gather feature stories. According to Editor Les Nelson, “she was good at everything she did” and had “a real knack for public relations on a personal level.”

   Leaving REA News for the Capitol Hill post, June was with Rep. Johnson’s office until returning to the rural electrification “family” in 1964 when the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) hired her as senior legislative research specialist. An August 1964 news brief noted June’s farewell party held by her congressional office was attended by, among others, Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of the president.

Jobs and Jottings

   June helped NRECA fight its many legislative battles until retiring in 1975. She and her husband, Norman Kraeft, later ran a Connecticut art gallery, and in recent years she wrote novels, published poetry, and co-authored books on American artists’ prints.

   We received word only recently that she died last summer at age 76 at her Arizona home.

   “As I write this column in a quiet office on a November Sunday, I’m seeing ghosts in every corner,” June wrote in her last “June’s Jottings” column for REA News in 1958. “Ghosts of stories I’ve always wanted to write and now never will—of people I’ve met and liked and may never see again, though I won’t ever forget them.”

   We gratefully return that final favor.

 

If you like your arts in an historic building, look no farther than the Pump House Regional Arts Center, near La Crosse’s downtown riverfront.

   The original Pump House was built by the City of La Crosse in 1880 to provide the city’s first main water pump to provide fire protection to the community. The structure was a brick version of Romanesque Revival architecture popular in the Midwest at the time. The Pump House was vacated in 1913; it was later taken over and remodeled by the city street department.

   In 1977, Western Wisconsin Regional Arts (WRRA) obtained the lease to restore and remodel the Pump House for its present use as a regional arts center for the visual and performing arts. The building was carefully renovated and was subsequently designated an historic building, being placed on the State and National Registers.

   In 1995, the official title of the center became the Pump House Regional Arts Center. Community support provides funding for the many diverse programs that are offered at the center, including art exhibits, musical programs, and occasional classes.

   For March, the Kader Room and the Dayton Theater in the Pump House will display a new show of installation artist Ryan Varley. Called “Ritual,” Varley’s show centers around his experiences with diabetes and the influence it has had on him. An opening reception for the artist will be held on March 11 from 5–7 p.m. Meanwhile, Larry Johnson’s watercolor paintings will be in display in the Lobby Gallery, while the balcony will hold artwork from various elementary and middle schools in the area.

   In a live performance at the Pump House’s Dayton Theater on March 5, Janet Planet and John Harmon will demonstrate their musical program combining jazz and classical elements. Randy Sabien, jazz and blues violinist, is already on tap for April 2.

   Whether you’re there to appreciate the architecture, the art, or the music, you’re sure to be pleased with the offerings of the Pump House Regional Art Center.—Linda Hilton

The Pump House is located at 119 King Street, La Crosse, WI 54601. For further information or coming events, call 608/785-1434 or visit www.thepumphouse.org.