David Newman Retires
‘This job at Ripley Power and Light has meant everything to me’
Groundsman. Lineman. Meter reader. Meter shop technician. In his nearly 45 years at Ripley Power and Light, David Newman has done most every job at the utility.
Once, after breaking his foot, he even answered phones in the customer service department.
“When Mike Allmand hired me, he said he wanted me to learn every job at the power company,” Newman said.
He is retiring in late December, leaving “a job that has been my life. The employees are my family.”
“We appreciate David’s long term dedication and service,” said Allmand, President and CEO of Ripley Power and Light. “We wish him and his family the best in his retirement.”
Newman, who lives in the family home in the Curve community, had just finished a year of training in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves when he had a decision to make: Get a job or stay in the reserves.
Morris Worlds, a close family friend, was operations superintendent at Ripley Power and Light and encouraged Newman to apply at the utility.
Allmand had just become Power and Light’s manager when he interviewed Newman. “I was his first hire as manager,” Newman said.
Though Newman had helped his dad with odd jobs around the house, he said he knew little about electricity when he started in July 1980. He learned on the job.
“I climbed my first electric pole in the first week or two,” he said. “I was doing work in the bucket truck the first year.”
He has enjoyed his job, he said. Newman particularly enjoyed the satisfaction of helping customers and restoring power caused by bad weather.
In the last eight or nine years, he has been in charge of the meter shop.
Newman, the son of Carolyn and the late Thee Newman, grew up in Curve and attended the former Curve Elementary School. His class had 12 students. He entered reserve training after graduating from Ripley High School.
He and his wife, Ann, have four children, nine grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.
“I just know we have a whole pile of kids here at Christmas,” Newman said.
He still lives on the farm where he was born. Through the years, he was a firefighter and fire chief of the East Lauderdale County Fire Department. He has farmed with his father and owned his own tree service company.
In retirement, Newman hopes to travel in an old RV he is restoring. “I love to travel, and I want to do more of it. I’ve had a blessed life,” Newman said. “This job at Ripley Power and Light has meant everything to me.”