Members Excel At Demanding Hobbies

May 2005 IBEW Journal

IBEW members are the best at applying their skills to electrical equipment. Several members are also adept at handling dogs and horses, as their excellence at demanding sports demonstrates.

Mush!

While most Michigan utility workers head inside when they leave work to escape the state’s frigid winters, two IBEW linemen do their unwinding out in the cold.Jerry Papke, Detroit Local 17, and Phil DenBoer, Grand Rapids Local 876, previously strangers, met through Phil’s wife, who shares their love of dog sled racing, also called mushing. Lisa DenBoer says: "It seems the mushing community, just like the IBEW community, is unique unto itself and well-connected over vast geographic areas. In other words, it really is a small world after all..."Papke, employed by Detroit Edison Company, located in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, is a professional musher. He has competed in many professional races in the past several years. DenBoer, employed by Cloverland Electric Cooperative in the upper peninsula, has been a dog handler, an assistant trail boss and the 2006 trail boss of the Tahquamenon Country Sled Dog Race held in the upper peninsula every January.The outdoorsmen have met at numerous events and races throughout the last few years and have built a camaraderie and friendship beyond their union ties.

Lisa DenBoer says that the IBEW brothers’ links to the sled dog racing world have also benefited the surrounding community by enlisting Cloverland Electric Cooperative to donate goods to the racers’ community fund-raising efforts.