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Nearly half a century â€- on the job
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| PLWC employee Butch Johnson shows the newer electronic solid state meter. Beside it is a mechanical electric meter which according to Johnson is becoming obsolete. |
PLWC employee serves as mentor
By FRANK M. WITOWSKI JR.
fwitowski@paragoulddailypress.com
Editor’s note: this is part of a weekly series on the municipal utility
He is a jack of all trades. However, the statement “master of none” does not apply to Paragould Light, Water and Cable employee Butch Johnson. Johnson has worked for PLWC for more than four decades and is a fountain of knowledge and tremendous asset to the municipal utility.
“After 45 years of service to Paragould Light Water and Cable and the community, Butch Johnson is a mentor,” PLWC marketing director Jay Boone said. “His knowledge of the electrical system is a wonderful [asset] to the Paragould community and electric industry. He is definitely a leader in our industry.”
Johnson was born Dec. 22, 1943 to the late Virgil and Della (Dortch) Johnson in Cardwell, Mo.
“Back then, you had to go to Cardwell because there were no doctors in Leachville,” Johnson said.
Johnson said his father was his mentor. “My dad believed in working hard,” Johnson said. “When I got around six or seven year old, he began teaching me work ethics.”
Johnson said his father was self-employed and owned a coal and wood business and ran an icehouse operation in the summer. Johnson said his father had him carrying buckets of water when he was young and then he helped chopping wood as he got older.
“It’s amazing that my dad with a third-grade education could handle business as well as he did,” Johnson said. “Mom helped with keeping the books.”
Johnson graduated from Leachville High School in 1961 and attended Arkansas State University in Jonesboro with hopes of starting a print shop. He worked in the printing department of the Blytheville Courier for awhile while attending college. He also worked in the printing press for the National Florist Directory. Johnson said his neighbor, the late Kenneth Short, started the business which eventually evolved into what today is Teleflora.
Employment at PLWC
Because of family obligations, Johnson decided to go another route and landed a job with City Light, and Water on Sept. 9, 1963. Johnson served as a grounds man, digging post holes to set power poles five to six feet deep. He said he dug by hand with post hole diggers.
“I was just hired as a laborer,” Johnson said. “I had no experience at all in the electrical field. They just needed someone to help with construction and I got the job.”
Johnson was proud to say he was the first operator of the utility’s 1965 blue Ford digger derrick truck.”That was great,” he said. “I was chosen to operate it.” He remembers riding a bus to Oklahoma City with employee John Patten to pick it up. “It was the longest ride,” Johnson said commenting on the enormous amount of stops the bus made.
The new truck made his job much easier, he said. “But the reason we got the truck was to build a 69-KV [kilo-volt] loop line to connect all our substations being planned at that time.” Johnson said he was instrumental in building the first two substations for the utility though he says, “They were a whole lot different than they are now.” The first two substations are located on Fifth Avenue and Fifth Street.
He was transferred to the service department in 1966. His duties were to read meters and help with the service crew. “There was no bucket truck,” he said. “We had to climb every pole. There was lots of climbing back then.”
When the utility invested in the bucket truck, he said it made work easier and faster.
He remembers the construction and service crews moving from a location on Poplar Street to the old Arkansas Highway Department building in 1968. He said the building is now used as a fire station.
He worked on the service crew for 17 years, then in May 1982, he was in charge of starting the official metering program. “With my experience in metering, control wiring and trouble shooting, I was asked to help install Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition,” he said. “I also learned the program of central control and did programming to help set that up.” Johnson said he also learned how to work traffic light controls. He said for 10 years he was in charge of all metering and purchasing the equipment that was needed for the department.
In 1994, he was promoted to service department supervisor. Since then, he has been in charge of the generation plant for a short time and was overseer of the substation maintenance crew. He also supervised meter readers, service crew, “on/offs” and street light crews.
Johnson said he had a lot on his plate for awhile but in recent years, he has had the opportunity to delegate many of his responsibilities. Currently, his primary responsibilities are taking care of metering and serving as a key accounts manager. He said one of his dreams was for the utility to have an automated reading system for the meters but doubts this will occur during his tenure at the utility. He said ten years ago, the department began using electric radio transmitters so employees did not have to go directly to the meter to read it.
Teaching others
All of Johnson’s work duties are not performed at PLWC. This fall will be his second year teaching meter school at Arkansas State University in Newport. Johnson said he has been involved in meter schools since 1973. He has taught in one week seminars at the Mid South Electric Metering Association (MSEMA) for six years.
He has served on the MSEMA board for four years and this year was elected president of the association. He is excited that the association, based out of Tennessee, has recently gone international as two individuals from the Bahamas and a person from the Netherlands went through the training.
Life outside work
Johnson has had many things that kept him busy when he wasn’t at work. In his younger days, he enjoyed hunting and water sports, saying he couldn’t wait to go out to the lake and water ski.
Johnson said he was in the business of showing quarter-horses for 15 years and raised them for five of these years. He worked refurnishing antique furniture but gave the “hobby” up when it became almost a full-time job as his work was in demand. He does a lot of woodworking and has used his hobby to build many novelty wood pieces of art including a gazebo and an arbor on his property. He recently started building model ships. And the list of his talents, hobbies and abilities goes on. Johnson said he enjoys going with his wife Freddie to the small cabin they have on Norfolk Lake.
At this point, Johnson said he can’t imagine retiring from PLWC. “Your work becomes your life and your life becomes your work,” he says. “Coming to work is the biggest hobby I have now.”
He is a jack of all trades. However, the statement “master of none” does not apply to Paragould Light, Water and Cable employee Butch Johnson. Johnson has worked for PLWC for more than four decades and is a fountain of knowledge and tremendous asset to the municipal utility.
“After 45 years of service to Paragould Light Water and Cable and the community, Butch Johnson is a mentor,” PLWC marketing director Jay Boone said. “His knowledge of the electrical system is a wonderful [asset] to the Paragould community and electric industry. He is definitely a leader in our industry.”
Johnson was born Dec. 22, 1943 to the late Virgil and Della (Dortch) Johnson in Cardwell, Mo.
“Back then, you had to go to Cardwell because there were no doctors in Leachville,” Johnson said.
Johnson said his father was his mentor. “My dad believed in working hard,” Johnson said. “When I got around six or seven year old, he began teaching me work ethics.”
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“It’s amazing that my dad with a third-grade education could handle business as well as he did,” Johnson said. “Mom helped with keeping the books.”
Johnson graduated from Leachville High School in 1961 and attended Arkansas State University in Jonesboro with hopes of starting a print shop. He worked in the printing department of the Blytheville Courier for awhile while attending college. He also worked in the printing press for the National Florist Directory. Johnson said his neighbor, the late Kenneth Short, started the business which eventually evolved into what today is Teleflora.
Employment at PLWC
Because of family obligations, Johnson decided to go another route and landed a job with City Light, and Water on Sept. 9, 1963. Johnson served as a grounds man, digging post holes to set power poles five to six feet deep. He said he dug by hand with post hole diggers.
“I was just hired as a laborer,” Johnson said. “I had no experience at all in the electrical field. They just needed someone to help with construction and I got the job.”
Johnson was proud to say he was the first operator of the utility’s 1965 blue Ford digger derrick truck.”That was great,” he said. “I was chosen to operate it.” He remembers riding a bus to Oklahoma City with employee John Patten to pick it up. “It was the longest ride,” Johnson said commenting on the enormous amount of stops the bus made.
The new truck made his job much easier, he said. “But the reason we got the truck was to build a 69-KV [kilo-volt] loop line to connect all our substations being planned at that time.” Johnson said he was instrumental in building the first two substations for the utility though he says, “They were a whole lot different than they are now.” The first two substations are located on Fifth Avenue and Fifth Street.
He was transferred to the service department in 1966. His duties were to read meters and help with the service crew. “There was no bucket truck,” he said. “We had to climb every pole. There was lots of climbing back then.”
When the utility invested in the bucket truck, he said it made work easier and faster.
He remembers the construction and service crews moving from a location on Poplar Street to the old Arkansas Highway Department building in 1968. He said the building is now used as a fire station.
He worked on the service crew for 17 years, then in May 1982, he was in charge of starting the official metering program. “With my experience in metering, control wiring and trouble shooting, I was asked to help install Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition,” he said. “I also learned the program of central control and did programming to help set that up.” Johnson said he also learned how to work traffic light controls. He said for 10 years he was in charge of all metering and purchasing the equipment that was needed for the department.
In 1994, he was promoted to service department supervisor. Since then, he has been in charge of the generation plant for a short time and was overseer of the substation maintenance crew. He also supervised meter readers, service crew, “on/offs” and street light crews.
Johnson said he had a lot on his plate for awhile but in recent years, he has had the opportunity to delegate many of his responsibilities. Currently, his primary responsibilities are taking care of metering and serving as a key accounts manager. He said one of his dreams was for the utility to have an automated reading system for the meters but doubts this will occur during his tenure at the utility. He said ten years ago, the department began using electric radio transmitters so employees did not have to go directly to the meter to read it.
Teaching others
All of Johnson’s work duties are not performed at PLWC. This fall will be his second year teaching meter school at Arkansas State University in Newport. Johnson said he has been involved in meter schools since 1973. He has taught in one week seminars at the Mid South Electric Metering Association (MSEMA) for six years.
He has served on the MSEMA board for four years and this year was elected president of the association. He is excited that the association, based out of Tennessee, has recently gone international as two individuals from the Bahamas and a person from the Netherlands went through the training.
Life outside work
Johnson has had many things that kept him busy when he wasn’t at work. In his younger days, he enjoyed hunting and water sports, saying he couldn’t wait to go out to the lake and water ski.
Johnson said he was in the business of showing quarter-horses for 15 years and raised them for five of these years. He worked refurnishing antique furniture but gave the “hobby” up when it became almost a full-time job as his work was in demand. He does a lot of woodworking and has used his hobby to build many novelty wood pieces of art including a gazebo and an arbor on his property. He recently started building model ships. And the list of his talents, hobbies and abilities goes on. Johnson said he enjoys going with his wife Freddie to the small cabin they have on Norfolk Lake.
At this point, Johnson said he can’t imagine retiring from PLWC. “Your work becomes your life and your life becomes your work,” he says. “Coming to work is the biggest hobby I have now.”
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