Customers often cheer when bucket trucks arrive in their neighborhoods because they know the trucks are bringing the linemen to restore power after storms or other events have caused outages. Many customers understand generally that lineman maintain the electrical grid that delivers power to homes and businesses. However, not many customers, or even close friends and family members know exactly what skills are necessary to do the job well.
The 2026 Entergy Mississippi Lineman Rodeo and Family Fun Day, held recently at the Mississippi Fairgrounds in Jackson, allowed friends and family members to see some of the tasks that lineman must complete to keep power flowing. The competition includes two divisions, the apprentice division and the journeyman division. The apprentice division is reserved for linemen who are early in their training, with four years or less as an apprentice. The apprentice linemen compete individually, while the journeyman linemen compete in teams of three.
In addition to a written test, the apprentice competition included the pole/egg climb, hurtman rescue, obstacle pole, and a transformer restoration. The pole/egg climb requires the lineman to climb the pole safely, smoothly, and professionally without breaking the egg. The climber will place an egg in the bucket and place the bucket handle into his mouth. The climber will ascend the pole and will drop the empty bucket that was pre-placed on top of the pole. He will put the egg in his mouth and proceed to climb down. The goal is to touch the ground without cracking the egg.
The hurt man rescue event simulates that a man has been injured while working to change out a faulty disconnect. The obstacle pole event requires the lineman to complete a variety of tasks in order at certain locations on the pole.
The journeyman teams also compete in the pole/egg climb and hurt man rescue events. In addition, they competed in the conductor down, arrestor change and knot tying events.
In the conductor down event, lineman demonstrate what they would do in a similar situation in the field, beginning with following strict safety protocols—securing the area, confirming the line is de-energized, assessing the damage and making repairs to restore service safely and efficiently. In the arrestor change event, linemen demonstrate how to safely remove a damaged surge arrestor and install a new one—isolating the equipment, confirming it’s de-energized, swapping hardware with precision and ensuring the system is properly grounded before returning it to service.
The top two apprentices and top three journeyman teams will represent Entergy Mississippi at the 41st Annual International Lineman’s Rodeo, which will be held in Overland Park, Kansas, in October. With more than 300 teams and 450 apprentices competing, the event will include a safety conference and the opportunity to meet peers from around the world.
The linemen representing Entergy Mississippi in the international competition include Austin Osborne, who received first place overall in the apprentice division and Josh Smith, who received second place overall in the apprentice division.
In the journeyman division, the Gloster team, including Zac White, Thomas Larkin and Chris Hunter, received first place; the Jackson team, including Patrick Dennis, Lawson Varner, Kirkland Ledbetter and Cody Spears received second place; and the Madison team, including Tim Raines, Chipper Jones, Jimmy McAdory and Zach Noone received third place overall. The teams placing first and second in the Entergy Mississippi competition will compete in the international competition, while the team placing third will serve as judges for the competition.
In addition to watching the competition and enjoying entertainment in the KidZone, the rodeo gave potential future lineworkers the opportunity to participate in their own competition. The Future Lineman relay for children up to age 15 added to the fun and gave the children a chance to practice skills that mimic those of a lineworker while competing for fun prizes.
