JONESBORO, Ark. (KAIT) – The lineman scholarship is now open for any high school seniors who are also adrenaline junkies.
Craighead Electric Cooperative is offering two exciting opportunities for youth in Region 8.
Craighead Electric has awarded one local high school senior a full-ride scholarship to attend the ASU Newport High Voltage Lineman School for over two decades.
High school students wishing to work on powerlines after graduation can apply for the 2025 Lineman Scholarship.
Energy Services Specialist Jon David Carmack warns students that it is a “very highly specialized profession.”
“It is not like an electrician, it is extremely high voltages and extremely high in the air,” Carmack said. “It’s a very hazardous job so you have to learn how to do it and how to do it safely.”
Costing over $8,000 with tuition and books fully covered, applicants must complete a pre-entrance pole-climbing exercise to be considered for the scholarship, as well as two letters of recommendation and a high school transcript.
Westside Alumni and 2021 scholarship recipient Garrett Robinson wanted to be a lineman at a very young age, following in his father’s footsteps.
“It’s a surreal feeling when he’d come home all tired or having that success feeling of turning people’s power back on,” Robinson said. “It always just intrigued me.”
The intense job can come with intense injuries.
Robinson said his mother called him the day before he applied for Lineman school, saying that his dad had been electrocuted.
“He ended up being okay, it’s just you hear about it so often it’s weird when it actually becomes a true story,” Robinson said. “Every time you go up on the pole, one wrong move and that could be it.”
Craighead Electric is also sending two high school juniors to the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas Youth Tour at our nation’s capital in Washington DC.
The all-expenses-paid weeklong trip includes visits to several national monuments and meetings with lawmakers.
Both applications for the lineman scholarship and the Youth Tour are due no later than Friday, Feb. 28.
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