Special to the Daily Times
January 12, 2008 02:00 pm
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Bob White retired from Farmers Rural Electric Cooperative on Jan. 1, after 46 years of service with the cooperative. White began his career with Farmers RECC on Jan. 1, 1962, as a transit operator on a survey crew in the co-op’s engineering department. “I even worked on a three-man maintenance crew for a time,” said White, “But I stayed with engineering instead of construction.”
After filling several positions in the Engineering department, including radio dispatcher, draftsman and engineering clerk, White transferred to the Power Use department in 1974 as the cooperative’s electrical in-spector. Later on the department was changed to the Member Services Depart-ment and in 1984 White was named vice president of Member Service and Public Relations, a position he held until his retirement.
White, an accomplished published writer and photographer, also served as the editor and contributor of Farmers RECC’s official member newsletter, Current Flashes, which appears monthly as an insert in the Kentucky Living magazine.
Prior to coming to Farmers RECC, White worked briefly for an engineering firm out of Nashville, Tenn., mapping telephone lines in Eastern Kentucky. “This was an exciting time for a young boy just out of high school,” commented White. “I would work on the survey crew during the day and finalize the day’s paperwork and route sheets at night. During that short period time, I saw a lot of cheap motel rooms. I remember vividly staying in the back room of the Greyhound bus station in one small Eastern Kentucky town. There were no motels or rooming houses in town and it was the only room available. But it had an old Army cot to sleep on, a table to eat and work on, a chair to sit on, and a bathroom in the bus station, so it worked just fine.
“I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years. Farmers RECC was formed 70 years ago this March, and I’ve been here for 46 of those 70 years. I remember the first digger truck, the first bucket truck, the first computer system and the first automated billing system at Farmers,” said White. “Back in those days, the people were different, too. When you couldn’t get a truck in to set a pole, then the pole was set by hand, that is after the farmer who owned the land harnessed up their mules and pulled it in for you. Electricity in the early days was a privilege, not a birthright,” stated White. “Probably the biggest change had been in the cost of electricity. I remember when Farmers’ rate was lowered from 1.2 cents to 1.0 cents per kilowatt.”
White has successfully completed several courses of study at the University of Louisville, University of Kentucky, Western Kentucky University and the University of Wisconsin. He is a graduate of the National Rural Electric Association’s Management Internship Program at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and the United States Department of Agriculture’s accounting courses for rural electric borrowers.
White served for a time as an instructor of industrial electricity (adult education classes) at the Barren County Area Technology Center, and presently serves on the Curriculum Advisory Com-mittee for the Electrical Section at the Technology center. White also serves
as commissioner on the Glasgow-Barren County Joint City-County Planning and Zoning Commission and as chairman of the Glasgow Board of Adjustments.
White is certified by the commonwealth of Kentucky as an electrical inspector for both residential and commercial installations, and is licensed as master electrician and an electrical contractor. He has served on a multitude of industry related committees with the Kentucky Associa-tion of Electric Cooperatives and East Kentucky Power Cooperative. He served for many years on the Rural Electric Cooperative Commit-tee charged with the responsibility of code revisions for the Kentucky Uniform Wiring Guide published by the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives. White also has a Kentucky real estate sales associate license and has completed courses required to sit for the broker’s exam.
Bob White, who is a minister of the gospel, ordained and licensed by Freedom Baptist Church, Bowling Green, has a Master of Religious Education degree from the Great Com-mission Bible College and a doctorate degree in theology from the Great Commission Theological Seminary. He is also president of the Great Commission Bible College/ Theological Seminary, president/ founder of Higher Ground Ministries, a worldwide educational outreach ministry, an ordained elder, Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Glasgow, and pastor of Mt. Moriah Cumberland Presbyterian Church, near Summer Shade. White is a past member of the Cumber-land Presbytery Judiciary Committee and currently serves as secretary of the Committee on Theology and Social Concerns.
In addition, White is involved with a church building project in the poverty stricken Maquassi township near Wolmaransstad, South Africa. He has the distinction of being the first American (Englishman in their terminology) to be granted the honor of preaching from the pulpit of the Dutch Reform Church in Ottosdal, South Africa.
When asked if he had any parting thoughts, White said, “I’ve given a lifetime to the co-op and its members, but it’s time to move on. I’ve had a good run. I have no regrets.” When asked about the future, White answered with a twinkle in his eye, “Well, there’s another mission trip being planned to South Africa to assist a children’s orphanage. Actually, it’s not an orphanage as we usually think, but it’s more of a feeding station for children whose parents have died from HIV/AIDS and they have no other source of food.
“And there’s Romania and perhaps the Philippines, but we’ll see,” continued White. “I’m content to walk the pathways of life as they are presented. As for now, Carol and I are looking forward to spending time with our family and adjusting to a slower lifestyle.”
Bob and Carol have two children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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