{"id":51111,"date":"2020-10-09T03:49:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T09:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/norman-butler-and-larry-archibeque-win-seats-on-empire-electric-board\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:54:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:54:45","slug":"norman-butler-and-larry-archibeque-win-seats-on-empire-electric-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/norman-butler-and-larry-archibeque-win-seats-on-empire-electric-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Norman Butler and Larry Archibeque win seats on Empire Electric board"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Norman
Norman Butler Jr. and Larry Archibeque congratulate each other Thursday after being voted onto the Empire Election Association board of directors.<\/span>Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Voters chose Norman Butler Jr. and Larry Archibeque to serve four-year terms on the Empire Electric Association board of directors during Thursday\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

For the District 4 seat, Butler earned 1,258 votes, or 46% of the vote, winning over Marianne Mate, 1,066 votes (39%), and John J. Hernandez, 413 votes (15%).<\/p>\n

For the District 7 seat, Archibeque ran unopposed and attracted 2,314 votes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll work hard to do what is best for the community,\u201d Butler said after vote tallies came in. \u201cIt means a lot that voters have confidence in me, and I appreciate their support.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is his first time serving on the Empire Electric Board. He said he looks forward to learning about its operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot to learn. I\u2019m looking forward to the challenge and contributing as a board member,\u201d Butler said.<\/p>\n

His interest in serving on the board came from \u201cwanting to serve the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Archibeque said he also looks forward to learning about the energy industry and helping to govern the cooperative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate this opportunity to serve the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Archibeque said his goal as a board member is to strike a balance between the different energy sources to maintain the lowest cost possible for the customer.<\/p>\n

Butler will replace District 4 board member Bill Mollenkopf, and Archibeque will replace District 7 board member John Porter.<\/p>\n

The mail-in ballot election results were tallied and announced at the end of the annual meeting held at Empire\u2019s Engineering and Operations Center. About 60 people attended the meeting.<\/p>\n

\"About
About 50 people showed up Thursday for the Empire Electric Association annual meeting, which included a board election.<\/span>Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Voter turnout was 21%, with 2,737 ballots returned out of 13,000 sent out. The turnout was better than last year\u2019s election which saw 16% voter participation. Board members are paid $1,000 per month.<\/p>\n

Butler grew up on the family farm on Summit Ridge in the house where he resides. He attended schools in Cortez and Dolores and graduated from Dolores High School. When not at school, he worked on the farm.<\/p>\n

From 1974 to 1992, Butler worked for Ponderosa Timber as a saw filer and millwright. During that time, he married and started a family with three children. In 1993, he started up his own business, Lone Cone Lumber, manufacturing log home kits. He also continued to farm. In 2004, Butler started work as a millwright for Aspen Wallwood. Currently, he holds the position of foreman, millwright and mechanic for Aspen Wallwood and Aspen Wood Products.<\/p>\n

Butler is a member of the Cortez SDA church and has been the school board chairman for Cortez Adventist Christian School for more than 20 years. He has been on the Summit Reservoir and Irrigation Co. board for more than 24 years and has served as president for more than 10 years.<\/p>\n

Archibeque has been a lifelong and multigenerational resident of Montezuma County.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in the sawmill camps of Fish Creek and Red Cloud, once located north of Dolores,\u201d he said. \u201cMy elementary education was in the Dolores School District, and I attended high school in Mancos, graduating from Mancos High School.\u201d<\/p>\n

He received a bachelor\u2019s degree from Fort Lewis College, a master\u2019s from Adams State College, and a post-graduate endorsement in education from the University of Northern Colorado.<\/p>\n

He retired after 34 years in education in Montezuma County and has served on the Pi\u00f1on Project Board and the Montezuma County Habitat for Humanity Board. He also assisted and coordinated commodity distributions in Dolores for several years.<\/p>\n

\u201cService to the community and giving back to the community has always been a lifetime goal as many have given back to my family and myself throughout our lifetime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said his goal serving on the Empire Electric board is to enhance the organization for its constituency.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pledge to all that I will be committed, value-oriented, transparent, accessible and hardworking for all members of Empire Electric while maintaining a focus on fiscal responsibility and service to the community at large,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

members will serve four-year terms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,227,13,28,308,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-51111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-empire-electric-assoc","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-local-elections","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87896,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51111\/revisions\/87896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51111"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=51111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}