By Riley Morningstar
Inside her grandmother’s living room in West Union, Savannah Waters has crafted something of a family tribute in the living room. There are photos of her grandfather, Bill, and dad, Mark. There’s a photo of Walhalla Circuit No. 6, referred to as the “Bill Waters Circuit,” which energizes the family home today. There’s also a duty roster from 1973, showing which Blue Ridge linemen had weekend duty throughout the year.
But the photo that makes her most proud is the one of her hardhat, labeled with her initials and radio number. The inside rim has her grandfather and father’s initials, as well as their radio numbers. The yellow hardhat rests atop stacked poles in the pole yard that Bill helped build.
“I know this wouldn’t mean anything to just about anyone else, but it’s special to me, says Waters. “I hope I leave a mark on the people I’ve been around like my granddaddy. I also hope in the next 85 years the linemen will stay as close as they are today. I hope they continue to have that brotherhood as long as the co-op is alive.”
For 54 of Blue Ridge Electric’s 85 years, the Waters family has been part of the co-op’s story. Three generations of the family have worked at Blue Ridge. The tie between the Waters and Blue Ridge Electric is unshakeable. It’s in their blood.
The foundation
Bill Waters was 27 years old when he started at the co-op on June 16, 1964, after pestering Blue Ridge’s first general manager, A.J. Hurt for employment. He came on as a groundman, a difficult job involving a lot of manual digging and framing of poles, among other tasks. He retired in 2000 as a crew foreman.
“He was always smiling,” Savannah says of her grandfather, who passed away in 2016. “People always told me I am the female version of Bill Waters. I know I have his stubbornness, but I also get that from my dad because he’s stubborn, too.”
In 1981, 14-year-old Mark was told by his father that he’d work at the co-op as summer help. It wasn’t presented as a choice.
“In his words,” Mark recalls, “‘I’m going to learn you how to work.’” “I started out at $2.15 an hour digging with posthole diggers and a shovel. I realized that you have to earn that money.”
Sam McMillan, who retired as vice president of operations in 2024 after working at the co-op for more than 40 years, can still remember meeting Bill Waters in 1984.
“Mark’s daddy was stern and expected a lot out of his crew. I worked for him for years and was always proud to be on his crew,” McMillan recalls. “If anybody had anything to say about his crew, and you were in the right, Billy had your back. I loved that about him. Billy’s wife Nancy is a saint, and they’re just a wonderful family.”
Mark worked in the warehouse and in the field with an underground crew before enrolling at Clemson University to study engineering. After graduating in 1992, he worked at an engineering consulting firm in Texas for a few years and then spent 11 years at Rutherford Electric Membership Corporation. Although his dad had retired seven years earlier, Mark was ready to return to Blue Ridge Electric. Alan Blackmon hired him, and he’s been at the co-op since. Today, Mark is senior vice president of engineering and operations.
“I learned as much from Alan as I did in college,” Mark says. “I owe (former co-op CEO and president) Mr. (Charles) Dalton and Alan for bringing me back in when I was looking for a job in 2007.
In her blood
Savannah was 16 years old when she started working part-time at the co-op. She began scanning staking sheets and helping in dispatch. For two years, she worked full-time in the fiber department. Now in the education field, she comes back to help the co-op wherever it’s needed during severe weather.
McMillan says she “always went above and beyond when she worked with me. I think that’s because it’s in her blood.”
As the third generation, Savannah has a unique perspective of the people that made Blue Ridge what it was early on and those that define it today. She also married into a co-op family. This spring, she married Black River Electric lineman Chad Baker, whose father was a Black River Electric Cooperative lineman for 34 years.
The nervousness she grew up with her dad working in a storm outage is twice as hard now that she’s married to a lineman. But she credits her mother, Denise, for being a steadying presence.
“I always worried about my Daddy because I knew it was a hard job,” she says. “When you have a loved one in the field during a storm and can’t get a hold of them, you have a pit in your stomach and worry if they’re safe. You want your family to come home safe.”
A family’s gratitude
Mark says he will always revere the past generations at the co-op.
“The older guys had it hard. I still look up to them,” he says “. “They weren’t highly educated from a book perspective, but they were smart and hard workers. Today’s work is hard, but we have different tools. It’s a much safer occupation now than it was back then.”
Both Mark and Savannah become emotional as they share their family’s story.
“All I ever wanted to do was work at Blue Ridge,” Mark says. He pauses a moment to answer the follow-up question of, “why,” not because he doesn’t know the answer but because of what the co-op means to his entire family.
“It’s what his dad did,” Savannah says, answering for him.
She apologizes for being emotional and then shares she’s expecting her first child. “With the good Lord willing,” the two say,” the Waters family legacy will continue in the decades ahead.”
“One day, when my children possibly work at the co-op, they’ll get to see stuff their great-grandpa once did,” Savannah says. “That’s why I keep everything. To me, I think that’s cool.”