International Lineman's Hall of Famer Bobby Blume, left, stands with the man who nominated him for the honor, Micah Thompson, who serves as co-ops' statewide director of loss control and safety.
Photo by Sarah Ellis Owen
Electric cooperative lineworkers in South Carolina are better and safer today because of Bobby Blume's four decades of trailblazing service.
Now, Blume's extraordinary career at Edisto Electric Cooperative and the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina will be properly recognized.
Blume was recently inducted into the International Lineman's Hall of Fame. Established in 2006, the organization honors electric lineworkers who have made notable contributions to their field.
There is no question Blume has done that.
He began his career with South Carolina's co-ops in 1966 as a lineman at Edisto Electric. Three years later, when the co-op purchased its first bucket truck, Blume became one of the state's first linemen to perform energized, hands-on glove work from an aerial device.
"I was young and dumb," Blume, now 81, remembers with a laugh. "Nobody else wanted to get up there in it."
A decade of experience in the field laid the groundwork for Blume's later role in developing many of the safe work practices that became standard across the state's cooperatives.
In 1976, he joined the co-ops' statewide association as the director of loss control and training programs for lineworkers. Over the next three decades, Blume trained lineworkers, helped co-ops comply with federal safety standards and coordinated power restoration efforts across the state after major storms.
"So much is taken for granted until you have a disaster," says Blume, noting the dangers electric lineworkers regularly face that often go unrecognized by all the people who depend on their work.
Mistakes and accidents—his own and others'—have been some of his greatest teachers and turned into lessons that Blume passed down to generations of lineworkers behind him.
"How do you know what someone's ability is? It's not necessarily what they've been exposed to. It's what they have learned from what they've been exposed to," Blume says. "Most often, in a linework sense, they learn more from someone else's bad experience than they can on their daily job. And if they can learn how to avoid one accident, they can possibly save somebody's life."
His work has been recognized beyond the co-op family. The state Department of Labor honored him with the Distinguished Service of Safety Award in 1981.
After his first retirement in 2000, Blume couldn't stay away long. He returned to work part-time for the co-ops' statewide association from 2007–15. Blume still speaks with apprentice lineworker classes several times a year, sharing stories and lessons with the next generation of men and women who work hard to keep the lights on across South Carolina.
"Bobby's passion for doing things the right and safest way possible and investing his time and knowledge in all his students will never be matched," says Micah Thompson, statewide director of loss control and safety and Blume's protege, who nominated Blume for the Hall of Fame. "He touched thousands of lives across the state and the country. There will never be another Bobby Blume."