If there’s one thing Danny McKarnin learned as a longtime City of Iola employee, it’s that he couldn’t help but learn something new every day.
I think anybody out there would agree with me,” McKarnin said. “You learn something new every day. There are so many variations of what you might be working on.
“And that’s what I liked most about it,” he continued. “There was something different every day.”
McKarnin, 62, retired Sept. 19 after a 34-year career with the city, the last 30 as a power plant technician.
MCKARNIN started with the city’s Parks Department in 1991 under then-superintendent Berkley Kerr, where he was tasked with helping maintain park grounds and equipment, preparing the city’s community buildings for both private and public events, setting up the swimming pool, shelter houses and ball diamonds for their busy summer sessions, and of course, “lots of of grass to mow,” he chuckled.
One unknown aspect about working there — at least from the public’s perspective — was the number of times he’d be called to work at midnight.
“If somebody rented a community building one night, we might need to have it ready for somebody else the next day,” McKarnin explained.
The work was enjoyable, but after four years working in the parks, McKarnin’s ears perked up when hearing about an opening at the power plant.
“It sounded interesting because I knew that with the nature of the work, I’d be exposed to lots of different things,” he recalled.
Sure enough, McKarnin arrived at the power plant ready to learn.
And learn he did.
THE POWER plant’s importance for the city cannot be overstated.
With a series of generators, fueled both by natural gas and diesel, the city can generate up to 28 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to meet the city’s peak demands on its own.
Every once in a while, the city would rely on local generation in case of outages outside the city’s grid, such as from storms.
But primarily, the local generation is needed during times of peak demand — namely in the dog days of summer when air conditioners are running at full blast.
That’s important, McKarnin explained, because being able to produce its own power makes a city eligible for lower electric rates from wholesale suppliers.
