By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
The mood was jovial on the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 28, as representatives from Rocky Mountain Power, Utah Power Credit Union and Price City gathered with the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce to unveil the newest addition to Price’s electricity corner, a monument to Reddy Kilowatt.
Making his first appearance in 1926, Reddy Kilowatt has served as the mascot and spokesman for corporate electric companies for almost 100 years.
“We’re so excited to be back in Carbon County in Price, Utah, where Reddy Kilowatt meant a lot to the history of this town,” said Utah Power Credit Union CEO Ryan Pollick. “We love being involved in anything that brings joy, and Reddy Kilowatt does that. I’m so excited to see the children who’ve never seen Reddy Killowatt get a thrill, but also those who worked for the power company and energy industry know that we still consider this to be the energy hub of Utah.”
Price City Mayor Mike Kourianos added,” his represents a lot of years of service that we provided clean energy for our communities. With the turbine and Reddy Kilowatt, and it means more, because a lot of people did a lot of work to make this happen.”
He added,” I’d like to thank everyone for showing up, especially Rocky Mountain Power, they helped with hunting this home … The community couldn’t do anything without Rocky Mountain Power. Price City is a municipality, so we have a contract with them, and that partnership means a lot.”
Following these remarks, the ribbon was cut and the covering pulled, presenting Reddy Killowatt to the world.
Speaking to Castle Country Radio, Mayor Kourianos explained the rationale behind memorializing the mascot,” This is an energy corner and ready kilowatt for a lot of us. It was the emblem for our company when Utah Power and Light first came into our area. So it means a lot to a lot of us and the retirees, and so we want to make sure that it’s not lost.”
“What we find is that this image brings a lot of joy to people, and wherever we can do our part in helping bring a community together, we love doing it,” said Pollick. “This is the fun stuff. I didn’t have one person as we approached the city and the community who didn’t want to see this happen. So you know you’re onto something when you don’t get any pushback.”
Representing Rocky Mountain Power, Merlin Rushton shared the importance of the statute,” It shows the history of our community. The turbine over here is from one of our power plants, and Reddy Killowatt has kind of been the company’s logo for decades. So it’s always been ingrained in the culture of our company, and so I think it’s really cool that we were able to put something up like this.”
Reddy Killowatt is located on the corner of 100 North and 100 East in Price.
Watch the ribbon cutting ceremony here: