The International Lineman's Rodeo celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2024 with more than 1,000 competitors. Listen to the narrated version of the article, "2024 Lineman's Rodeo Roundup" from the December 2024 print issue of T&D World magazine to hear all about the winners of the events across the apprentice and journeyman divisions. Congratulations to all the competitors, especially those who crossed the awards stage at the annual banquet.

In addition to providing an overview of the events at the 2024 competition, this episode includes a special shout-out to lineworkers with musical excerpts from Blane Howard, a Nashville independent recording artist, singer and songwriter. He kicked off the International Lineman's Rodeo awards banquet by singing parodies of famous country songs with lyrics focused on the hard-working line trade. To see the video of his performance, visit our YouTube channel for the Line Life Podcast.

Lineworkers and your families, we look forward to seeing you at the 2025 International Lineman's Rodeo Week from Oct. 15-18, 2025. Learn more by visiting the website.

As LUMA Energy continues to improve resiliency and power reliability on the island of Puerto Rico, the utility is training new apprentices to work alongside its field workforce. In June 2021, Quanta Services Inc. and ATCO launched LUMA Energy through a joint venture.

To train tomorrow's workforce and meet the need for more lineworkers, they later brought in a Department of Labor-registered apprenticeship program to replace the existing in-house training by the previous administration. During this Line Life Podcast episode, Lindsey Petteplace, LUMA's workforce transition manager and Jorge Olivero, apprenticeship coordinator for operations for LUMA, share the story of how the program has continued to evolve to prepare the apprentices for long-term and financially rewarding careers in the line trade.

These apprentices study and train at LUMA College, a chapter of Northwest Lineman College in Puerto Rico. At the training facility, they learn how to scale everything from wood to steel to concrete and fiberglass poles and train on the TransBanker mobile transformer training simulator. After they successfully finish the 13-week Utility Lineman Program, they then start working in the field on projects to power Puerto Rico.

The final episode of 2024 highlights those who have given back to their communities. It begins with an interview with John Andrews of Prysmian, which donated $25,000 to Hurricane Helene relief efforts and sent a truck full of necessary supplies to help those affected by the hurricane in South Carolina. It also features a narrated version of an online article about how Ameren Illinois lineworkers set up wire spools in a sensory garden at a local animal shelter.

This episode also features an interview with Paul Koehler and Jason Novak, lineworkers for Ameren Illinois, who talk about how the line trade came together in 2024 to support the Climbin4kids fundraising program and how they can continue to donate in 2025. Finally, we are featuring a brief overview of the Digging for a Cure campaign sponsored by Terex Utilities at the 2024 International Lineman's Expo and a recap of Salt River Project's holiday toy drive to brighten the holidays for children in the community.

If you are a lineworker who is giving back to your community, we'd love to hear about it. Reach out to us at linelifepodcast@gmail.com.