Area wind energy to be featured on NBC

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http://www.sweetwaterreporter.com/content/view/55915/60/

Area wind energy to be featured on NBC

Written by Lorena Turnbow

This past week, a crew from “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” came to Nolan and Taylor counties to film a segment that airs Monday.

The segment, which will air sometime during the 5:30 p.m. broadcast on KRBC-TV (Cable channel 5) in Abilene, focuses on the economic impact of the wind energy business on both West Texas and Denmark, which is considered the leading wind power nation in the world and a pioneer in modern wind power technology.

Much of the NBC crew’s time was spent in Trent.

Jeanie Graham, business manager for the Trent Independent School District, said NBC reporter Mark Hudspeth — accompanied by Sweetwater mayor Greg Wortham — was at the Trent school this past Sun-day morning. Also accompanying them was the Dallas-based camera crew for NBC News.

The Graham family owns a ranch in the Trent area south of the school that will be featured in the program. Jeanie Graham said the NBC crew went to the ranch to get footage of the land. Her family’s ranch does not have wind turbines on the land at present, but is scheduled to get them soon.

The primary focus of the report’s interviews was to get information on the wind industry’s impact to the area. Graham said the interviews lasted about four hours. “They interviewed me up on the mountain and they also shot footage of my two-year old son,” she said.

Graham said the rest of the report will be based in Den-mark and deal with how it has been affected by the growing wind energy business. Graham said the network is doing a series of reports on clean energy, and wind energy is one segment of the program.

After leaving the Graham ranch, the crew went to the family’s cabin in Mulberry Canyon. “You could see the wind turbines in the distance,” Graham said. Once they had completed that interview, Graham said Wortham took the crew up across the divide through Nolan County into Highland and Roscoe for more filming.

Graham said the NBC crew returned to the Trent school on Monday afternoon and talked with teacher Leanna West, who has taught at the school for 22 years and is very involved with the wind industry. She and Wortham helped to secure a small wind turbine located at the school that was purchased for the most part with a Region 14 grant. The small turbine is used to run a greenhouse located at the school and to teach students about exhaustible and renewable energy.

The crew also spoke to several students to learn how wind energy had affected them.
Graham said the wind industry has had a huge impact on the Trent area, and especially the Trent school. The increased tax revenues from wind turbines has allowed the construction of a new state-of-the-art school building as well as new artificial turf at the football field which was installed over the summer.