Outage Map
Longtime Central Electric Cooperative (CEC) Board Director Boyd Keeton retires
By Brent Ten Pas
When Boyd Keeton returned to Central Oregon in the early 1970s, he didn’t come looking for a board seat or a leadership role. He came to build.
Originally from Prairie City, just east of John Day, Keeton was working in the Willamette Valley for his brother Arland’s construction company, Keeton-King.
When the company won a contract to build the first condominiums at Black Butte Ranch, the work required Boyd and some crews to travel back and forth across the Cascades—a pace that wasn’t sustainable. Boyd and his wife, Hazel, settled in the Sisters area, where they still live in the home they bought in 1972.
In addition to construction work, the Air Force veteran engaged in general crop farming and raised registered Suffolk sheep with 1 of his sons.
As the construction firm continued to win bids for projects in Black Butte Ranch and elsewhere in Central Oregon, Boyd’s interactions with Central Electric Cooperative were frequent but not always positive.
He had issues with the cooperative’s engineering schematics for transformer pads, which were undersized, forcing the construction company to perform costly work to resecure the transformers.
After sharing his frustrations with his friend and neighbor Willard Cyrus, Boyd was encouraged to run for the cooperative’s board of directors.
“Willard, I don’t have time to run for the board,” Boyd told him. “I’m working 18 to 20 hours a day now."
Willard and other neighbors, however, kept up the encouragement until Boyd relented. In 1978, Willard gathered the required petition signatures on Boyd’s behalf. However, due to a snafu, Boyd wasn’t eligible to run.
“They circulated it (the petition), but it didn’t get turned in on time,” Boyd says. “It was 5 minutes late on the last day.”
Boyd had to wait 3 years before becoming a CEC director for District 2, the South Cloverdale/Sisters area, narrowly winning a contested race in 1981. He went on to serve 15 3-year terms, retiring from the board of directors in April.
Boyd joined the board at a turbulent time. CEC and other not-for-profit electric utilities were involved in the Washington Public Power Supply System—WPPSS, also known as the WHOOPS crisis. Due to the explosive demand for electricity, the consortium sought to build 5 nuclear power plants.
CEC believed it had committed to a percentage of power output—not construction costs—and refused to pay bridge loans when massive cost overruns emerged, prompting legal action to determine the issue.
A court confirmed CEC’s interpretation, and CEC emerged fiscally unharmed. CEC General Manager Lane Powell gave every CEC board director a paperweight with a giraffe on it to thank them for sticking out their necks.
While challenges ebb and flow, the cooperative is currently grappling with myriad issues: securing a long-term, affordable, and clean power supply, wildfire regulations, and building a resilient electric grid to withstand extreme weather, among others.
“Combine those issues with the speed of growth in the area, and the cooperative is facing some of its toughest challenges,” Boyd says.
As Central Oregon has grown over the decades, so has CEC. When Boyd joined the board, the cooperative served roughly 5,000 member service accounts. Today, it serves nearly 40,000, and the workforce has expanded by more than 40%.
To accommodate growth, CEC is embarking on a capital project valued at about $25 million to update its existing facilities at its Redmond campus, built 50 years ago.
“We’ve outgrown the old buildings,” Boyd says. “They’re inefficient and crowded. This isn’t about convenience— it’s about doing what benefits the members long-term.”
Boyd credits employees and board leadership for elevating professionalism throughout the years, including its safety culture and long-term planning. Early board meetings once consisted of handwritten notes and lengthy debates over truck brands. Today’s governance involves formal training, credentialing, strategic planning, and deep industry knowledge.
“Our board has people with a lot of expertise now,” Boyd says. “That makes a real difference in how decisions get made.”
Boyd doesn’t hesitate to share advice with future directors.
“They need to push for members’ interests first in every decision they make and to make sure, before they decide to try to run for the board, that they have the time to put into it, to attend the meetings, to go to other meetings and go to classes to get their credential director certificate and at least their leadership certificate,” he says. “And that takes quite a bit of time.”
He says serving on the board has been gratifying.
“I think I’ve been privileged to be there all these years, and I’ve worked with good people,” he says. “Our board has been excellent to work with. It’s given me a great deal of satisfaction. I just hope (members) remember me as honest and on their side for everything, and trying to do what I believe is right.”
Boyd came to Central Oregon to help build a few condominiums—and stayed to help build a cooperative legacy that will serve future generations.