[image-caption title="NRECA%20Safety%20Director%20Ken%20Macken%E2%80%99s%20giant%20Willie%20Wiredhand%20oak%20carving%20netted%20$1%2C000%20at%20the%20Texas%20Electric%20Cooperatives%20Loss%20Control%20Conference%20and%20Exhibit%20Show%20in%20San%20Marcos.%20(Photo%20By%3A%20Caytlyn%20Calhoun%2FTEC)%20" description="%20" image="%2Fnews%2FPublishingImages%2F2026%20Loss%20Control%20Conference-341-story.jpg" /]
When they’re not being used in the field to remove bulky branches or limbs, chain saws can also turn toppled trees into works of art.
Just ask NRECA Director of Safety Programs Ken Macken, who, when not traveling around the country visiting electric cooperative safety crews, uses his trusty Stihl-brand chainsaws to carve downed trees and limbs into works of art at his Rose, Oklahoma, home.
Late last year, Macken carved a six-foot hunk of oak into a life-size Willie Wiredhand sculpture, which he then donated to an auction sponsored by Texas Electric Cooperatives at its annual TEC Loss Control Conference and Exhibit Show. Macken has also branched out to create smaller versions of the beloved figure, including a one-foot carving raffled off during a lineworker conference in Omaha, Nebraska, last month.
One of 85 items on TEC’s auction block, Willie saw a winning bid of $1,000 from Trinity Valley Electric Cooperative. The auction raised about $64,000 for college scholarships for the children of Texas co-op employees.
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Macken made good on a promise made last year to TEC that he’d donate a Willie-themed chainsaw sculpture to the auction.
“There was a nice, little bidding thing going on,” he said. “There was some word that more people would've been interested, but they didn't have a way to get him home.”
Willie started off as an oak tree that had fallen on Macken’s property after a storm. In between his heavy travel schedule for work, Macken spent about 20 hours over two months carving Willie in his garage. “Mr. Wiredhand,” as Macken calls him, required three large chainsaws and four other power tools to finetune his features.
“I saw Willie in the tree,” said Macken. “I was looking at a section that kind of split off, and I thought, ‘That’s where his legs will be and there’s his plug-in.’ I cut the tree limb and drug that part with a chain and tractor back to the house, and that’s where I started working on him.”
[image-caption title="Willie%20Wiredhand%20at%20his%20new%20home%E2%80%94the%20training%20room%20at%20Trinity%20Valley%20Electric%20Cooperative%20in%20Kaufman%2C%20Texas.%20(Photo%20Courtesy%20Trinity%3A%20Valley%20EC)" description="%20" image="%2Fnews%2FPublishingImages%2F8X8A8587%20Edit.jpg" /]
Macken’s friends in the cooperative network helped, too. Cotton Electric Cooperative in Walters, Oklahoma, donated a pair of Class 3 rubber gloves, stamped with Willie’s birth year in 1950; a hard hat came from SEMO Electric Cooperative in Sikeston, Missouri.
Others donated time, muscle and wheels to help Willie make the trip to San Marcos. Four people loaded the 350-pound Willie into the back of a Chevy Equinox SUV, where he fit “with an inch to spare,” Macken said. At the final destination, six people lugged him to the auction block.
“It was an exciting bidding competition, and I would say that we were scared we wouldn’t bring him home,” said Chad Marshall, manager of safety and loss control at Trinity Valley EC.
Willie’s new home is in the training room at Trinity Valley EC’s headquarters in Kaufman. Macken said he will always have a soft spot in his heart for the carving. “It’s weird, but I miss seeing him in my garage.”
