The fair, in its fourth year, runs from 9 a.m.to 1 p.m. Saturday, July 27, at California High School. It offers no-cost medical screenings, a school- and grade-specific backpack of supplies, information booths, entertainment and more. The signup deadline is July 1, and registration forms can be found at Co-Mo Electric Cooperative, the Tipton Times, Commerce Bank or online here.

The Tipton School District is increasing its involvement in the entertainment portion of the fair. It is, among other things, sending its drum line and school mascot to entertain the kids.

“Increasing our entertainment offerings has been a focus for this year’s fair,” said John Agliata, president of the Moniteau County Alliance for Kids, which organizes the fair. “We’re having kids get dental screenings and eye exams and things like that, which might not be the most fun for them, so we want to balance that with a lot of fun things while they are there. Tipton Schools has really stepped up to the plate to help with that.”

Besides the drum line and mascots, other fun activities include rides in the Co-Mo Electric Cooperative bucket-truck buckets, appearances by clowns and cheerleaders, as well as a visit from Santa Claus, who will be getting mid-year reports for his naughty-and-nice list and will be available for photos.

More than 330 students from across Moniteau County already are registered for the fair. Because of that large number, there is a good possibility there will not be enough backpacks of school supplies for those who do not register.

“The fair seems to have grown tremendously from last year to this year, and that’s a good thing,” Agliata said. “This is agreat community event for the entire county, no matter what school you attend or what town you live in or what your income level is. All that we ask is that you please register so we can be prepared.”

Those with economic means are asked to bring at least one jar of peanut butter per registered child — or other school-lunch item — for the Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri’s Buddy Pack program, which feeds hungry children over weekends and holidays throughout the school year.

For the first time this year, Back to School Fair organizers will be welcoming representatives from MoCHIP —Missouri Child Identification Program. MoCHIP provides parents with a CD of their child’s digital photographs, fingerprints, emergency contacts and dental bite impressions, as well as two laminated ID cards.

Brad McCord, a member of theCalifornia Masonic Lodge who is coordinating with MoCHIP to bring this service to the fair, said it is an important weapon against the growing problem of missing and abducted children. And, he added, it goes beyond just kids.

“A lot of times adults who have elderly parents with Alzheimer’s Disease or other relatives who are in danger of wandering away will come and take advantage of this service,” he said.

There will be no charge to registered students.

As planning for the fair moves into the homestretch, the Board still is accepting donations, which can be made to the Moniteau County Alliance for Kids and mailed to P.O. Box 220, Tipton, MO 65081.

“This is a county event,” Agliata said. “People often like to put up these walls around our communities and have these rivalries with other towns, but this is one event that isworking hard to break down those walls. I’m so happy to see the Tipton Schools stepping up to help us do that.”

The network, which provides blazing-fast Internet, crystal-clear telephone and reliable television service, is a product of Co-Mo Comm, the communications subsidiary of Co-Mo Electric Cooperative.

The agreement with the city of California paved the way for Co-Mo Comm to begin the first extension of Co-Mo Connect beyond the electric cooperative’s members.

“We’re excited about the opportunity to extend Co-Mo Connect into the city of California and bring those economic-development opportunities and quality-of-life improvements here to the business and residential communities,” said Randy Klindt, general manager for Co-Mo Comm.

The move into California was made possible because the city owns its own electric utility. This helped pave the way for negotiations for Co-Mo Comm to hang fiber on the city’s electric poles.

City of California residents interested in Co-Mo Connect can go to Co-Mo.net and click on the special link at the bottom of the homepage. Through that link, residents can express their interest in the various services Co-Mo Connect offers.

Co-Mo Comm contractors will be in California soon to remove the lines from a defunct cable company. In the place of those lines will be placed Co-Mo Connect fiber, which will carry some of the fastest Internet speeds in the country. Packages start at 5 megabits per second and range up to 100 mbps and beyond. Special business pricing is available.

Beyond Internet, Co-MoConnect also offers unlimited local and long-distance residential telephone service. Co-Mo Comm also is rolling out Co-Mo Connect TV.

“There are some really great features unique in this area to Co-Mo Connect TV,” Klindt said. “The biggest of those is Restart TV.”

With Restart TV, subscribers can go to the beginning of programs on select channels, regardless of whether they were turned to that station or forgot to set their DVR.

“So if you want to watch a big game and you get home with two minutes to go, you can just click a button and go back to the beginning,” Klindt said.

Co-Mo Connect also has some of the best prices in the area, with a simple bundling discount of $15 a month for those choosing two services and $35 a month for those choosing all three. Details can be found at Co-Mo.net or by calling (800) 781-0157.

Co-Mo Comm President Ken Johnson said that the California project won’t slow down the four-phase expansion of Co-Mo Connect to all areas served by the electric cooperative.

“The key thing is for all our members to know we are hiring additional crews to do this, not taking crews away from the work on building out Phase 1. There will be no delay because of this in getting Co-Mo Connect to our members,” he said.

Phase 1 began in May and is expected to take about a year to complete. Each successive phase is expected to take a similar amount of time. Subscribers can follow along with the project at Facebook.com/comoconnect.

Blankenship, of Latham, decided not to seek re-election at the cooperative’s Annual Meeting on Thursday night and was honored by his colleagues as a man dedicated to the members’ interest.

“When you ask people associated with Co-Mo to describe Bill, you get some words and phrases I think all of us would like to have said about them,” said Co-Mo Board President Doug Strein, who presented Blankenship with a special board resolution honoring him. “Steady. Dedicated. A strong supporter of the membership.”

Elected in Blankenship’s place was Gene Eulinger Jr. of California.

“I’ve been a member of this cooperative for more than 28 years and I want to give back to the community,” he said. “Now that I’m retired, I have the time to give.”

Eulinger joins John Schuster and Larry Schupp, both of whom won re-election to the board Thursday night. At the board’s reorganization meeting following the annual gathering, President Strein, Vice President Schupp and Secretary/Treasurer Linda Fry were reappointed to their leadership positions.

Beyond the election of directors, the annual event was held with the backdrop of a new location and in front of a massive crowd of more than 1,400 people. It was the first time the cooperative played host to the meeting at its new Operations Center, which was dedicated before the gathering with a ribbon cutting coordinated by the Tipton Chamber of Commerce.

The building was purchased in 2012 from Nordyne, which left Tipton and consolidated its operations in Boonville. The cooperative has renovated the facility to house its engineering and operations staff and materials.

“Co-Mo Electric has been a part of this community for nearly 75 years. By taking a vacant factory and renovating it to meet its needs, Co-Mo is sending the signal that it intends to be here for the next 75 years,” said Denny Higgins, president of the Tipton Chamber of Commerce.

During the business meeting, the cooperative awarded the O.B. Clark Members First Award for 2012. The award is named in honor of longtime director O.B. Clark, who served the electric cooperative world on the local, state and national levels for nearly four decades.

Clark was on hand to present the award, which goes to the employee or employees who best represent the cooperative’s values through their actions during the course of the previous year.The 2012 award went to linemen Craig Hutchison and Todd Lohmann. The duo was driving past a member’s home when they noticed a growing fire in the woods nearby. The linemen drove up to the house to alert the member and stayed until the fire department arrived to make sure the blaze didn’t get any closer to the home. In doing so, they lived out the cooperative’s value of putting the safetyof the membership first.

Toward the end of the evening, the cooperative presented a check for $2,061.40 to the Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri’s Buddy Pack program, which provides food for kids who would otherwise go hungry over weekends and school holidays. The money was raised through the sale of  T-shirts in the wake of the massive snowstorm dubbed “Rocky” that hit Co-Mo country Feb. 25-26 and knocked out service to more than half of the cooperative’s members.

All profits from the sale of the shirts, offered and printed by BW Graphics in Versailles, went to the Buddy Pack program.

 “Those T-shirts show the all-for-one, one-for-all spirit we saw during the restoration period,” said Co-Mo CEO/General Manager Ken Johnson. “It’s hard to imagine taking a snowstorm that knocked about 17,000 meters offline and turning it into something positive, but together we made that happen.”

After the meeting concluded, the cooperative awarded door prizes valued together at more than $2,000.

Trees toppled into the roadway made it challenging to get to the outage sites Monday evening. All Co-Mo crews worked through the night Monday and until about 10 p.m. Tuesday. 

"When a lineman is near getting power back on to even one member, it's hard to get him to agree to come in and get some rest,"  said Lake District Manager Corey ten Bensel. “Our guys were close to geting power back to about 500 members (Tuesday) night. Once they accomplished that, it was time to come in and get some rest so they could finish the job safely the next morning."

This is the second major storm to affect Co-Mo members this year. Snowstorm Rocky knocked out power for more than 17,000 members in an outage that lasted more than five days at the end of February and beginning of March.

The violent straight-line winds interrupted service to about 6,400 Co-Mo members, mostly in its Lake District. The hardest hit areas were Ivy Bend and Gravois Mills.

Trees toppled into the roadway made it challenging to get to the outage sites Monday evening. All Co-Mo crews worked through the night and, by 1 p.m. Tuesday, had made significant progress in restoring power.

“These outages are in some places with very challenging terrain,” said Lake District Manager Corey ten Bensel. “The roads are dirt roads that are very narrow and hilly. Add in the darkness and it made for a long night for our guys.”

This is the second major storm to affect Co-Mo members this year. Snowstorm Rocky knocked out power for more than 17,000 members in an outage that lasted more than five days at the end of February and beginning of March.

“We’ve been in Mother Nature’s bulls-eye,” said Co-Mo CEO/General Manager Ken Johnson. “It’s part of life in the Midwest, but I think our members are ready for some relief.”

Danny Wood, a lineman with Co-Mo since 1994, said he’s seen worse spring storms but that this one was pretty bad. He was called out around 8:30 p.m. Monday night and was still working hard Tuesday afternoon.

His first job Monday night was to replace five poles in a row that had been broken and toppled.

“Straight-line winds, looked like to me,” he said. “Wire torn up. Big trees down. It was a mess.”

Operations Manager Chuck Tuttle said his goal was to have everyone’s power restored by nightfall but that there was a good chance some members might still be without electricity.

“We’re working hard, but there are some bad outages and we appreciate everyone’s patience,” he said.