1. Office: Fort Oglethorpe
Job Title:
Customer
Service
Representative
Years of
Service: 24.
She was hired
on Oct. 22,
1984.
Family: Husband, Clarence;
daughters, Tina Beesley of Fort
Oglethorpe, and Michelle
Bakizada of San Francisco;
grandchildren, Blake Beesley,
Elizabeth Beesley, Izzy Beesley,
and Abram Bakizada
Hobbies/Interests: Reading
and travelling
I’m happiest when: I’m with
my family
My kind of music: old-time
rock & roll and country.
Motto/Quote: When I’ve had
to face hard things, I realize
things could always be worse
and there are people a lot worse
off than I am.
One word that describes
me: Dependable
The Cooperative Grapevine December 2008/January 2009
The
CGrapevine
OOPERATIVE
Meet CharlotteService awardsCheerleading champ Hits 5-0$100 winner 6 hires
North Georgia EMC Employees & Retirees December 2008/January 2009
What’s
Inside
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COOPERATIVE faces
8
Co-op Friends ~ Charlotte Johnson
To help you get to know your fellow employees better, we feature one of our
employees every month. We hope you would consider participating if asked.
vs.
Mark Pace
L
ifetime journalist Mark
Pace, a Communications
Specialist at our co-op
since 1983 who turned 94 in
June, has rarely seen a story idea
he didn’t like. And Mark’s
almost seen and done it all. “I’ve
seen everything that can happen
to mankind,” Mark is fond of
saying.
As editor of the Dalton news-
paper from 1945 to 1982, Mark’s
adventures included being depu-
tized in Catoosa County when
law enforcement officers needed
help hemming in
a suspect in
Ringgold, and
following offi-
cers on raids to
catch moonshin-
ers on Sand
Mountain,
Alabama. He
also once interviewed former
heavyweight boxing champion
Jack Dempsey in Dalton.
So in the mid-1980s when
someone invited him to take a
picture of a bear at Red Bud
Elementary School in Gordon
County, Mark gladly agreed. At
the time, Mark was working with
us but also helping run the fledg-
ling, but short-lived Calhoun
Dispatch newspaper. This assign-
ment was done for the newspa-
per.
After thinking about the invita-
tion to meet the bear at the
school, Mark wondered if the
creature would actually be a man
dressed up as Smokey Bear pro-
moting forest fire prevention.
When Mark reached the
school, he asked some boys
where the bear
was being kept. Go around a cor-
ner, they told him. There Mark
indeed found a bear—a real bear
on a chain being restrained by a
male trainer. But nearly as soon
as Mark arrived, the bear jumped
up and started wrestling him.
“I saw the bear but I didn’t pay
any attention to the bear because
I thought it was a man in a bear
outfit,” Mark recalled. “But it
was a bear in a bear outfit.”
The bear confrontation was a
little rough, but Mark survived.
“When the bear first grabbed
me, I looked at the man’s face
who was holding the bear and he
was calm. That told me every-
thing would be OK as long as I
stayed calm,” Mark said. “ I
could tell the bear had been
trained to have no fear of man.
But I had enough sense not to
fight the bear. I just let him do
what he wanted. The bear knew
he was in control. I was the sub-
ject and the victim.”
The bear, trained to wrestle on
its back legs, eventually let Mark
go.
That afternoon, Mark watched
another demonstration of the
wrestling bear as the trainer let
the animal wrestle a big college
football lineman at Red Bud’s
gym. It was another innocent
event when the lineman and the
bear wrestled for play in front of
students.
When Mark returned to the
newspaper, he wrote an article
about his bear experience.
Aren’t we glad Mark bear-ly
escaped the wrestling match.
The Bear
Mark Pace
By
Jeff Rancudo
M
uch construction in recent months is improv-
ing existing substations and finishing the
final steps to energizing new ones in 2009.
Here’s a look:
Swamp Creek Substation in south Whitfield County
will receive a new 25 MVA transformer around Jan. 8
to add capacity to the area. The old 15 MVA trans-
former will be re-used at a future substation.
Our newest substation will be North Resaca in
Gordon County off Ga. Highway 136. Framing is com-
plete there, the transformer is set to arrive in late
January and it is expected to be energized in April.
Ground is cleared for the South Resaca Substation in
Gordon County with energizing in October or
November.
Kiker Substation in north Whitfield County is
upgrading with the four circuits at the substation going
underground. Two of the circuits will go under Ga.
Highway 2, one will exit the substation’s north side
and another the west.
Construction brings new substations
online, improves existing ones
B
eginning Jan. 1, electric bills
for our average customer
will fall by more than $7
thanks to recent declines in the cost
of the fuels needed to generate
electricity.
For the first quarter of 2009, TVA
is lowering the Fuel Cost
Adjustment (FCA), effective on bills
for meters read on or after Jan. 1.
The driving forces behind the
FCA decrease are reductions in the
prices TVA pays for natural gas
used in power generation and for
the power it purchases from other
energy suppliers. Lower demands
for electricity have also contributed
to the decrease in the FCA. The
FCA might have dropped even
more, but the price of coal, which
accounts for 60 percent of TVA’s
power generation, has not experi-
enced price reductions yet.
In January, the residential FCA
charge will decrease from 1.896
cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh) to
1.395 cents per kwh. For customers
who consume an average 1,500
kwh a month, this equates to a
reduction of about $7.50 on their
monthly bill.
The FCA is the tool TVA uses to
help recover the costs of fuel used
to generate electricity and the cost
of electricity purchased from other
power suppliers.
Our North Resaca substation located in Gordon County
will most likely be the first new substation energized in
2009, probably in April. Above, workers with Service
Electric of Chattanooga work on framing.
TVA lowers FCA for first
quarter 2009 as fuel costs fall
TVA extends 6% financing on
14 SEER or higher heat pump units
Johnson
O
ur customers will probably
be glad to hear that the
Tennessee
Valley Authority has
extended to qualifying
customers 6 percent
financing through
March 16 on 14 SEER or higher
split and package heat pumps and
Advanced Heat Pump systems
financed through the energy right®
Heat Pump Program.
Advanced heat pumps are
defined as variable-speed, triple-
function, water-source, and earth-
coupled or geothermal heat pumps.
Units must be installed, inspected
and paperwork submitted to our
Dalton office by March 16 to be
eligible for 6 percent financing.
Our members can still finance 13
SEER split or package heat pump
systems at 8 percent fixed interest
rate, if they qualify.
People on our Hearts
Ken Bain and our troops
Bea Cady having numbness
on one side
Kim Gamel’s pregnancy
Shelia Gossage doing better
Ricky Guinn’s sister in-law,
Lisa Morgan, better
Danny Hales mother has
fallen, breaking her hip
Danny Langford’s brother-in-
law has prostate concerns
Danny Langford’s uncle in
need of a kidney
Wayne Motes in the passing
of his grandchild
Edwin Parker
Natasha Poteet’s pregnancy
Keith Queen’s son, Anthony,
having heart surgery Feb.
17
Bob Rivers’ wife, Tona, has
arthritis
Randy Skidmore’s mom
having back therapy
Teresa Tish’s stepfather’s
surgery went well
Michelle Hayes health con-
cerns
Nikki Townsend recovering
from surgery
Please keep these in your thoughts and prayers:
Sympathy
To Willard Poteet, NGEMC retiree,
in the passing of his wife, Sybil, on
Nov. 23.
Richard at 50
Richard Elrod, Manager of
Purchasing and Stores,
Dalton, recently celebrated
the big 5-0 birthday. With
the help of these sunglasses
and some prune juice,
Richard surely has many
more years of service
ahead at NGEMC.