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MRES Apprentice Lineworker Braydon Ripka works to set a line on the Navajo Nation reservation.

In early April, a team of employees from Missouri River Energy Services (MRES) and five representatives from our member communities headed to the Navajo Nation for the Light Up Navajo VI project, working to connect families to electricity for the first time.

Braydon Ripka never realized how much he took for granted. Through a recent volunteer experience, he now has a deeper appreciation for simple things like flipping on a light. A second-year apprentice lineworker with the MRES distribution maintenance (DM) crew in Luverne, Minnesota, Braydon jumped at the chance to volunteer for Light Up Navajo, a collaborative project launched in 2019 by the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) and the American Public Power Association (APPA).

Each year from April to August, volunteer lineworkers from public power utilities across the U.S. journey to the Navajo Nation to provide power to homes without electricity.

Braydon was joined on the trip by fellow MRES team members: Clay Welchlin, a journeyman lineworker, and Dean Fuerstenberg, an apprentice lineworker — both from the Jackson distribution maintenance crew — and Andrew Johnson, a member programs coordinator who documented their work.

“Right away I threw my hat in the ring. I didn’t even have to think about it,” he said.

Many on the Navajo Nation made signs welcoming utility crews from around the U.S. coming to bring their homes power for the first time.

Five volunteers from three MRES Minnesota member communities also stepped up to take part in the project: Mike McGrane and Bob Steidl, journeyman lineworkers from ALP Utilities in Alexandria; Andy DeBlieck, electric distribution supervisor from Detroit Lakes Public Utilities; and Rene Celedon, apprentice lineworker, and Dan Joel, superintendent, both from Westbrook Public Utilities.

They joined over 300 volunteers from 44 utility companies to provide Navajo families with something they’d never had. Electricity.

Stationed in Window Rock, Arizona, the MRES crew worked across the Fort Defiance Utility District along the Arizona-New Mexico border. Throughout the week, they crisscrossed both states, drilling holes, setting primary and secondary poles, wiring homes and hanging transformers – step by step bringing electricity to places where it had never existed before.

Once everything was hooked up, NTUA staff energized the lines and plugged in the meters.

By the end of the week, the crews connected four families to the grid for the first time.

The crews from MRES, Alexandria Light and Power, Detroit Lakes and Westbook stand with Alice Chavez and her family.

When that first switch flipped, tears flowed.

Alice Chavez is in her 80s and has never lived in a home that had electricity.

Alice sat outside watching each day as the crew worked to provide power to her home. She’d bring them water and snacks, making sure they were never hungry or thirsty.

“When we told her she could go in and flip on the lights, she started bawling. She just kept saying ‘thank you, thank you, thank you.’ It was hard not to get choked up,” Braydon said.

At the end of each day, Braydon would go back to his hotel room and decompress, reflecting on the day’s work.

“When I thought about the tremendous impact we were making, I just didn’t have words,” he said.

The MRES crew worked in extremely rugged terrain, with one hole taking over three hours to dig due to the solid rock beneath the surface.

Braydon’s time in the Southwest was also a good professional learning experience. Being from Luverne, Braydon is used to dealing with an underground system, but everything set in the Navajo Nation was overhead, and much of it on rough terrain.

In the final days of the project, the crew framed and set 30 poles across 2.5 miles of rugged, mountainous landscape. The goal was to connect a cluster of four homes in an extremely remote area. The terrain was so tough, one stubborn hole took nearly three hours to dig with a pressure digger due to solid rock beneath the surface.

Eventually, the team got everything set and soon another utility group will come back to complete the job and connect more families to electricity for the first time.

That’s something that may not have happened at all without the Light Up Navajo project.

“The utilities worked together for a common cause. They saw the need and worked hard to build power lines and connect homes in remote and isolated areas. Without these partnerships, it’s very likely that the families would have remained waiting,” NTUA General Manager Walter W. Haase said.

MRES apprentice lineworker Braydon Ripka works to bring power to families on the Navajo Nation.

While the experience will stay with Braydon here on the plains, he left a piece of himself there in the high desert.

Braydon is part Dakota, affiliated with the Sisseton-Wahpeton tribe. His aunt carves pipestone sculptures and made him a small turtle to take with him on his trip. In many Native American cultures, turtles symbolize longevity, protection, wisdom, healing, health and safety.

“My aunt told me either to keep it with me for protection or give it to an elder,” Braydon said.

Before leaving her home, Braydon left his pipestone turtle with Alice Chavez.

If he ever has the opportunity to serve on the Light Up Navajo project again, Braydon wouldn’t even have to think about it.

“I’d go back over and over and over again,” he said.