Energy news from Omaha Public Power District
Energy news from Omaha Public Power District
Ben Dolezal has been at OPPD for more than a year, and this was his first rodeo.
Dolezal was one of nine OPPD line technicians to compete in this year’s Nebraska Lineworkers Rodeo.
The rodeo promotes the work line technicians do in the field and is a chance for them to showcase best practices.
Dolezal loves to compete, and the rodeo was a chance to compete with his peers and learn new skills he can put to work in the field.
“If I can learn some things from the others along the way, some best practices, I figure that’s a bonus,” Dolezal said.
OPPD’s team had a solid showing at the rodeo, held in Broken Bow at the Custer County Fairgrounds. The journeymen team of Ted Gyhra and Brent Foxhoven took first place overall among the journeyman teams this year. Andrew Hansen placed second in the in the apprentice rope toss event.
“They all did well,” said Transmission & Distribution field supervisor Rickey Baxter, OPPD’s representative for the rodeo. “Even the apprentices who didn’t get trophies did a great job.”
Training day
A few days before the rodeo, Dolezal and his teammates spent a day at OPPD’s Elkhorn Center training yard preparing for the competition. Events include a hurt man rescue, where the line techs have to rescue a dummy from the top of a power pole, a climbing competition and other events. Two-person crews and apprentices are judged on how well and how quickly they perform tasks.
The rope toss event gave everyone trouble on the training day. Competitors had to toss a rope over a power pole crossarm more than 30 feet above the ground.
Dolezal said he wanted to compete last year but couldn’t because he was ill. He knew of some college friends who were competing, saw photos of last year’s event and thought it looked fun. This year, he said, he was determined to compete at the rodeo.
“I just don’t want to finish last,” Dolezal said during a break from the training. “I’m nervous, but I’m looking forward to it; I love to compete.”
Dolezal didn’t finish last. Instead, he finished in the middle of the pack – 24th out of 44 competitors.
“I was happy with my performance,” he said after the competition. “There are little things I can work on to get better for next year.”
A winning team
Gyhra and Foxhoven set the standard for a second straight year.
What is most surprising about their award-winning partnership is the two have never worked together in the field.
“That’s not the case with many other teams,” Foxhoven said at the training yard the day before the group left Omaha for the event. He and Gyhra were working on speed climbing up a de-energized power pole. “You go to the national events; these guys have been together for years.”
Gyhra and Foxhoven have a lot of the same ideas about how they compete.
“We work really well together, we are really in sync with each other,” Foxhoven said. “We anticipate each other’s moves.”
The pair won the 2023 competition and were able to defend their title this year.
“They are just good,” Baxter said of Gyhra and Foxhoven. “They take it seriously and have good communication about what they are doing and how they plan to go about it.”
OPPD’s other competing apprentices this year were Rio Woodyard, Nick Wolf, AJ Walter, Tyler Jensen, Gildardo Zarazua and Andrew Hansen.
Ernie Ross, Mike Sapienza and Matt Hobbs from OPPD served as judges, and Brandon Parmer and Brian Kramer also participated.
Jason Kuiper joined OPPD as a communications specialist in 2015. He is a former staff writer and reporter at the Omaha World-Herald, where he covered a wide range of topics but spent the majority of his career covering crime. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha and has also appeared in several true crime documentary shows. In his free time he enjoys cooking, spending time with his wife and three children, and reading crime novels.
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