GVEC Lester, Mr Mrs Pal - November 6, 1987
Interview with Mr. and Mrs. Pal Lester
Interviewer: Scott McMurtry
Transcriber: Scott Mc Murtry
Date of Interview: November 6, 1987
_____________________
Begin Tape 1, Side 1
Scott McMurtry: This is an interview with Mr. and Mrs. Pal Lester. Today’s Friday, sixth [of] November, 1987.
How long have you all resided in the GVEC [Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative] area?
Mrs. Pal Lester: Thirty, thirty years; since we’ve been married.
Mr. Pal Lester: I’ve been here a lifetime. I was born in the county. But we, as a married partner, been here thirty years.
McMurtry: Okay, Mr. Lester, you were here all your life. Were you here before they had electricity out this way?
Mr. Lester: No, no, we had electricity when I was a boy.
McMurtry: What do you think of the relationship you have with GVEC? Have you been satisfied with it or unsatisfied with them or—
Mr. Lester: I’ve always been satisfied with the service we’ve received.
McMurtry: Have they treated you all right?
Mr. Lester: Yeah. We always get above and beyond treatment from them.
McMurtry: Really?
Mr. Lester: Yes. We’ve been treated very well by them. Why, I don’t know; but we’ve been very, very satisfied.
McMurtry: Okay, Mrs. Lester, anything to add to that?
Mrs. Lester: No.
McMurtry: Okay, do you think the GVEC Review, the little sheet they send out, does that provide any useful information? Like, on conservation and other ways to cut your bills?
Mr. Lester: It’s informative, and it helps us to get to know some of the other employees from time to time. It helps use to know who’s there because it’s gotten quite large.
Mrs. Lester: The manager’s our neighbor. He just lives across the road.
Mr. Lester: It helps us, you know, to know who [are] the new people that come here, to know whose part of it.
McMurtry: Do you think it’s informative enough? Do you think they could expand it a little bit more, or is it about right?
Mr. Lester: There’s so much stuff you can review today; it’s probably enough for me.
McMurtry: Do you participate in the load management program?
Mr. Lester: Yes.
McMurtry: What do you think of that?
Mr. Lester: I’m just going by their advice on it. It helps me and others. Well, I’m for it.
McMurtry: GVEC management says they’re going to offer some more services in the future like satellite TV, sewage and garbage service. Do you think that an electric company ought to expand into areas like that? Do you think GVEC can handle it?
Mr. Lester: If it doesn’t interfere with their electric service—
McMurtry: Would you participate in that? I notice you have your own satellite [dish] out here, but if they had a better deal—?
Mr. Lester: If it’s advantageous, yes.
McMurtry: The Member Services division offers advice on how to save energy. Have you used this? Have you taken their advice on it?
Mrs. Lester: Yes. Pretty well so.
Mr. Lester: We observe it [energy conservation] in the house here. You know, we used to run it cooler through their advice. Along with that out there in the chicken house, we’re running on fluorescents now when we used to just run the incandescent bulb. They’re coming up with some information on that that’s been helpful in farming chickens, and it’s true, the fluorescent’s saving us quite a bit of electricity.
McMurtry: Have y’all ever received any electricity from another utility, or has it been GVEC the whole time?
Mrs. Lester: No [GVEC the whole time].
McMurtry: This ought to be a good question. You think electricity is vital to our life, or do you consider it a luxury?
Mr. Lester: We use it as both. It’s definitely vital, but a lot of the things we have are luxury.
McMurtry: Yeah, I expect with chickens having electricity is—
Mrs. Lester: It’s vital.
McMurtry: —it is nowadays.
Mr. Lester: Yes, labor situation the way it is, and the mechanical movement of the feed and everything, it’s vital.
McMurtry: Do you consider doing your housework and keeping house; do you work outside the home?
Mrs. Lester: No. Everything’s electrical, couldn’t do without it.
McMurtry: That’s one I’ve been thinking about on my own lately. I don’t know. Has your attitude about electricity changed since you were young? Since you were kids?
Mrs. Lester: I don’t think so.
Mr. Lester: I don’t believe.
McMurtry: Do you remember what kind of household appliances and stuff you had then? When you were a kid?
Mrs. Lester: Not many.
Mr. Lester: No, just an old wringer washing machine. Very few when I was at home. Had gas heat, a few electric lights and the wringer washing machine. Now it’s everything; we don’t have any gas here.
McMurtry: In gas country, huh? The next question, has it changed the way you work, say with new equipment? This would really lead into you [Mr. Lester] with the chickens. Could you sort of elaborate on that a little bit?
Mr. Lester: Well, I guess, it’s for me; not just me, everyone’s about the same in the poultry business. It’s all electrically mechanical; we’re not any more innovative than anybody else. It’s just—everyone’s about the same when it comes to that. Some of our [chicken] houses are climate-controlled because of the convenience of electricity. Hadn’t changed really; it’s the pattern we’re all in.
McMurtry: Over the years, have you introduced any new equipment that you didn’t have?
Mrs. Lester: Your electric feeders. You used to do that by hand.
Mr. Lester: Yeah, our feeding used to be manual, and it’s electrical—run by motors and drives and—the tanks used to be overhead, gravity flow, where they’re now augured in, but I think everyone’s about like that in the poultry industry.
McMurtry: Would you say there are any important changes in your life that were related to electricity?
Mr. Lester: Electricity’s allowed us to grow, to expand. The ability to get feed so many so easily; it’s allowed us to expand rapidly.
McMurtry: So you’re a bigger, more profitable organization because of having the convenience and the power?
Mr. Lester: Yes. Right. The ability to do it because it’s mechanical and run on time clocks and whatever you set it, just leave it and come back to check it. Because all this mechanical stuff is run on time clocks. It runs itself, you might say.
McMurtry: So you don’t have to hire so many people to work for you?
Mr. Lester: Yeah.
End of interview