Special to The SUN
La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) has once again been honored for newsletter excellence by the Colorado Rural Electric Association (CREA) for its publication “Watt’s Up,” included in CREA’s monthly magazine, Colorado Country Life. CREA annually organizes the newsletter competition among the rural electric cooperatives it serves throughout the state.
Each year, LPEA is eligible for eight awards, and this year LPEA received seven of those eight awards, nearly sweeping its division of cooperatives with 25,000 meters or more. LPEA was recognized for both writing and photography.
LPEA CEO Greg Munro took first place in the “Best Explanation of an Industry Situation” category with his article discussing the relationship of LPEA and Tri-State Generation and Transmission, LPEA’s power supplier, in “All in the Family.”
Manager of Operations Steve Gregg received first place honors for the “Best Safety” article, titled “Safety is Everything,” with Indiana Reed, marketing communications specialist and “Watt’s Up” editor, taking second place in the Safety category for the article “Electricity and Fire Safety.”
Reed also took all four awards in the remaining two categories, “Best Community Article” and “Best Photo.” The community articles covered energy efficiency and lighting retrofits at Stoneage (“Stoneage No Dinosaur” — first place) and LPEA’s program to help install solar on area middle schools (“Solar to the Schools” — second place). Reed’s photos, which accompanied articles “Rounding Up Emma Sweeney” and “Protecting our Feathered Friends,” earned first and second place, respectively.
