Top of the class

TRENTON, Ga. — The clock starts as soon as Thomas Terek jabs his boot spike into the telephone pole.

Thirty-five seconds of flying splinters later he is 35 feet in the air, frantically fastening his safety lines.

At 44 seconds in, he has his fluorescent orange wrench out, loosening an insulator post from the power pole.

At a minute-15, he places the insulator into a basket, which his team members lower and raise with a new unit in 10 seconds flat.

The Johnstown, Pa., native slides the new insulator into place, grabs his wrench and starts torqueing the nut — until gravity takes hold. The nut slips off the threads and tumbles to the ground. After watching helplessly as it falls, Terek shouts in frustration.

“You can’t go down and grab it,” said Terek, 21, shaking his head when back on the ground.

On Thursday, Terek and about 100 other graduates from the 15-week program at the linemen’s school participated in a rodeo-style competition, climbing poles, hoisting loads and rescuing 180-pound dummies.

“This is a hands-on profession,” said George Nelson, the center’s president, watching the center’s 32nd class of graduates. “You’ve got to know what you’re doing. You’ve got to climb the poles.”

Students, who come from as far away as Vermont and Michigan, say the rodeo is a fun final event in their training, but getting a job matters more than winning or losing. Many of them said they are getting into the field, where salaries can start at $50,000 or $60,000, for job security.

“It’s about the only thing that’s steady,” said Dennis Fowler, 34, from Advance, Mo. “Everything else may slow down, but you’re always going to need electrical workers.”

Others are carrying on a family tradition.

Ryan Flaherty, 19, from Auburn, N.Y., got into the field because his grandfather and uncle were linemen.

“He’s got a little in the blood,” said John Flaherty, Ryan’s father, who was rolling a video camera and rooting for his son Thursday.

Keeping track of Terek in the swarm of students proved to be difficult for his mother, Cindy, who made the drive from New York with her husband and Terek’s grandfather.

Aiming her video camera, she joked that he was the one in jeans, boots and the yellow hard hat, pretty much the program’s unofficial uniform.

He considered a two-year lineman program at a community college in Pennsylvania that could have cost as much as $30,000, she said. The Dade County center lured him because it’s one-third the cost, lasts only 15 weeks and focuses on hands-on training.

“I think he did a good thing coming here,” she said.

With Terek up on the pole and the nut on the ground, his teammates shout up to him, reminding him of the spare nut in the basket. The second nut spirals up the threads successfully, the wrench goes back in the tool belt and Terek calls out “Done,” stopping the clock at 2 minutes 21 seconds.

“I was shaking man, all these people,” Terek shouts down to one of his teammates before climbing down the spike-chewed timber.