RCC’s electrical lineman program holds its first class session

LUMBERTON — Robeson Community College’s new electrical lineman program conducted its first day of classes on Tuesday with 19 students from Robeson County in the first cohort of students.

The current maximum class size is 20, but program head Joshua Locklear said as time passes, he plans to work toward increasing that number.

The students will be on campus every Monday through Thursday from 7:3o a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for 12 weeks.

Robert Clark, one of the teachers for the program, said the students will be basic climbing, live scenarios, transformers, underground maintenance, overhead maintenance, how to operate a bucket truck and other day-to-day skills and safety procedures necessary for an electrical lineman throughout the program.

“At the end of the day, we want to make sure we’re doing things as safe as we can,” Clark said.

Class participants said that the first day of the program has been an enjoyable experience.

Student Elijah Johnson said he had tried working in a few places, but nothing clicked for him until he chose to pursue a career as a lineman.

“I love it,” Johnson said. “I love everything about it.”

Student Gabriel Jackson said that while he always did well in school, he preferred to work with his hands.

“I’ve been working in construction for a long time, and when I came out of high school I went to be a diesel mechanic,” Jackson said. “but that didn’t work out. I have a buddy who works at DSI as a lineman, and he talked to me about it.”

He said he thinks the rest of the program will be a lot of fun, as well as a lot of learning safety regulations.

The students are anticipated to start learning to climb next week, and their first day consisted of a brief lecture, tools being handed out, learning the campus and learning to operate a bucket truck.

“Today has been better than I could have imagined,” said Jonas Locklear. “We’re excited!”

While dates have yet to be chosen, Locklear said that he plans to have two events for the students near the end of the program. One will be a family day so the students can exhibit what they learned, and the other will be an exhibition-style job fair.

RCC will invite several electrical companies to attend the job fair, where students will demonstrate their skills and have the potential to be offered a job.

The next cohort will begin accepting applications in August.