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Insights > Forrest City Employees Know How to Spark Incoming CEO's Interest
Forrest City Employees Know How to Spark Incoming CEO's Interest
04/20/2016
Word’s gotten around that our incoming president and CEO is a bit of a company history buff. During the last seven months, Rick Riley has crisscrossed our territory for 28 meet-and-greets at service centers and office buildings. From Harrison to Hot Springs to Helena and El Dorado to Blytheville, clerks organized the food, and fellowship and conversation ensued.
“If you have a museum for what you do,” Riley said, referring to the International Lineman Museum in North Carolina, “then you have a craft that you can be proud of.”
He’s shared his enthusiasm for the future of the company while employees have shared various Arkansas Power & Light memorabilia and equipment they’ve been collecting over the years. A selection of artifacts now in Riley’s possession includes: old insulators, AP&L books, utility pole stamps, Reddy Kilowatt trinkets and a large metal sign squirreled away (possibly without Alicia Riley’s knowledge) at home.
“So, you want to go out to Moses?”
After biscuits and gravy, Forrest City senior lineman Buddy Autry offered a tour of the retired Hamilton Moses Steam Electric Generating Station on Highway 70.
Riley grabbed his hard hat and was out the door!
Construction began on the St. Francis County facility in 1949, with 500 workers assembling the plant over a 15-month period. It interconnects with the Entergy system by a 161 kV transmission line.
Autry and journeyman lineman Bo Bryant accompanied Riley, while clerk Charlotte Darby and third-generation employee and engineering associate Chip Arnold admired a dramatic wall of wrenches in the power house.
Riley’s tour took place almost 65 years after 5,000 people gathered on the grounds for a day-long celebration to dedicate the natural gas plant in honor of one of his predecessors, AP&L president and CEO C. Hamilton Moses.
Ben H. Wooten, president of the First National Bank in Dallas, delivered the 1951 keynote address. He praised Moses for his leadership of the state’s largest utility and for his leadership in bringing industrial and agricultural progress to Arkansas.
“The kilowatt is the life blood of modern civilization,” said Wooten.
Forrest City was “bedecked in bunting” and the plant served as “a symbol of progress for the State and the South” proclaimed a September 1951 edition of The Exciter, AP&L’s company newsletter. AP&L’s 1951 Annual Report featured a striking twilight scene of the Moses plant and celebrated the latest addition to the utility’s production system with an interior flap headline: “Arkansas…A Power-Full State.”
Gov. Sid McMath attended, along with numerous civic and business leaders. Mayors from 34 east Arkansas towns declared the day a holiday and urged folks to close their businesses to attend. A children’s chorus, a Navy band and 29 east Arkansas towns sent “princesses” to compete during the Queen Kilowatt beauty pageant held during the dedication ceremonies. (Sharis Smith of Wynne won the contest.)
A multi-colored neon sign of the power plant’s name (it was the 1950s, after all) hailed the $15 million plant that brought 140,000 additional kilowatts of generating capacity. Natural gas needed to fuel the plant became available to a large section of eastern Arkansas that had previously not had this service.
Riley enjoys engaging with employees and visiting facilities across our territory. While he’s keen to keep the founding spirit of the company relevant, he’s working hard to create an inclusive and rewarding work culture as Entergy advances economic and industrial growth.
Entergy Arkansas employees will continue to keep the lights on and support communities. In effect, We Power Life!
Employees who joined Riley for the tour were: Bo Bryant, Murray Smith, Buddy Autry, Ryan Huntington, Spencer Price, Kyle Smith, Alex Pace, Chip Arnold and Charlotte Darby.
