ANNUAL RODEO HAS LINEMEN PUT THEIR BEST FOOT UPWARD.

Byline: Erik Nelson Staff Writer

SYLMAR - In a competition that made bull riding and steer wrestling look safe Saturday, about 100 linemen from six utilities showed a crowd of more than 1,000 how fast they could work without making a deadly, 7,500-volt mistake.

They called it the ninth annual Lineman's Rodeo, or Men in Gaffs: Bringing Light to a Dark World, but these pole-climbing cable wranglers face a much meaner adversary than cowboys in a rodeo on the hoof.

``What we call high-voltage shock, that is always a fatality. You just don't get a second chance,'' said Mo Chaudry, a contest judge and assistant general manager for power distribution for the city Department of Water and Power, which hosted the rodeo at its Sylmar training facility.

That's why, when the Glendale Water and Power team of Anthony Sylvers, John Wanner and Lino Torres changed a ceramic ``bell'' insulator, they used ``hot sticks,'' or long fiberglass poles with hooks and clamps on the end so they could manipulate a power line without getting within the minimum 28 inches.

Although the contestants worked with dead lines, they routinely perform such procedures with energized lines and equipment so as not to interrupt power to customers, said Ken Bushman, a retired district superintendent for the city Department of Water and Power.

Retirees were out in force at the event, helping judge or simply cheering on the competitors.

In the case of defending champions Ken Twomey, Jim Schultz and Terry Silva, retired DWP superintendent Fred Ferguson also supplied a few jeers as the trio changed a transformer mounted near the top of a utility pole.

Twomey dropped a fuse link, which is a large connector that completes the circuit to the transformer, and a minute later fumbled and almost dropped a second fuse link.

``At least you're consistent!'' Ferguson yelled at the frustrated Twomey, who was docked two points for dropping equipment.

The city linemen, who maintain and repair a network of about 300,000 utility poles in Los Angeles and the Owens Valley upstate, competed against teams from Southern California Edison and public utilities from Burbank, Glendale, San Diego and the Imperial Valley.

Each three-man journeyman team and each two-man apprentice team had to complete five events in four hours. Three events involved replacing things as a team: a transformer, a cross beam and an insulator bell. The other two required individual team members to climb a pole and rescue a 160-200 pound dummy and an egg, intact and uncooked.

Todd Alden, Scott Barnes and Ron Beech of DWP's downtown Electric Trouble Division won the overall contest by making no mistakes and scoring the only perfect 500 points. The journeymen linemen will advance to the national linemen's competition in Kansas City later this year.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Department of Water and Power employees participate in the ninth annual Lineman's Rodeo in Sylmar.

(2) Department of Water and Power employee Mike Traweek tends a line as he and his partner compete in the Apprentice Cross-Arm Installation and Removal portion of the Lineman's Rodeo, held at the DWP's Sylmar training facility.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News