On May 10, 1939, Tipmont REMC was incorporated. At the first meeting of the Board of Directors, Bone was elected President, Newton was elected Vice President, and Wells was elected Secretary-Treasurer.

The Statewide REMC sent Verle Hiatt to prepare project maps. He became the project superintendent and, later, Tipmont REMC’s first general manager — serving in that capacity for about 18 months. Before lines could be staked, property owners had to sign right-of-way easements, areas had to be cleared of trees and brush, and the REA had to approve all construction projects.

Putman and Woolpert, an REA-approved engineering firm from Dayton, Ohio, was selected to stake the lines. The first stakes were set on August 1, 1939, and the first pole was set about October 1, 1939. Honold & LaPage, Inc., of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, built the first 180 miles of Tipmont lines.

Holes for poles were dug by hand, and linemen had to physically climb poles (wearing straps and safety belts) to attach wires. Paul Antle was hired for maintenance work and served as interim project manager. Tipmont’s growth as a cooperative created need for a line superintendent, and Antle served in that capacity until his death in 1962.

Mary E. Shanklin was Tipmont’s first bookkeeper and stenographer. As the project grew, more office employees were hired — including Susie Antle, Fred E. Baber, Lela Imler, Martha Montgomery, Margaret Phipps, La Vern Rickey and Claude Smith. During World War II, the cooperative lost several male employees who served their country.

Early maintenance and field employees included Kenneth Hartman, Wallace Hood, Andrew Johnson, Roy Meharry, Russell Payne, George Simmons, Buren C. Stewart, Ed Street, Roy Wells and James Wright. Some of them worked to obtain signed right-of-way easements so poles could be set and lines built while others performed wiring inspections and hooked up services to primary lines. Mary Ellen Meharry, Roy’s wife, remembers the times she and Susie Antle joined their husbands to hold flashlights so linemen could make repairs during nighttime outages.

As Tipmont grew, the Board of Directors faced many major decisions, such as acquiring sufficient office space, purchasing office equipment and vehicles, protecting legal documents, and determining the line materials, transformers and meters to use. Because they were manufactured in Lafayette, the board chose Duncan meters.