The Pipeliners Tour, celebrating skilled labor and crews working on the Ridgeline Expansion Project, makes its first stop in Cookeville.
The Tour’s founder Melanie Baxter said the tour serves as a crew appreciation event designed to recognize the hard work of welders, operators, and other pipeline workers. Baxter said she selected Cookeville as the first stop of the series because the city’s centrality to a major natural gas pipeline expansion project.
“I felt like the crews kind of got left out of, you know, the fun things and the, you know, getting noticed for the hard work,” Baxter said. “And so I just I thought it would be a good way to appreciate the crew and bring everyone together and so the Cookeville, Tennessee is the first stop in the series and for 2024 and I picked it because it is in the heart of the Ridgeline Expansion Project, which is a huge pipeline project and that’s kind of how it got started.”
Baxter said the infrastructure project is necessary to bring more natural gas to growing communities as the population increases. The tour will make its first stop next Sunday.
Baxter said the event also provides a networking platform for young people interested in entering the skilled trades to meet with professionals and contractors.
“I think that it is a way for big business and corporations to kind of wake up and and recognize and take care of their crews,” Baxter said. “I mean, I seriously stood there and I was like ‘This is not.. it’s just… it’s different’. And it’s like I see the guys, like, how many… I mean, they work like they could work ’til midnight a night and, you know, go back the next morning, get up at five or four, you know, and do it again and I just think that they need to be recognized.”
Baxter said the Upper Cumberland region is a hub for pipeline activity with ongoing maintenance and new projects located nearby in Georgia and West Virginia. Baxter said the presence of local trade schools like TCAT and Roane State makes the area an ideal location to attract younger generations into the industry.
“I tell them, you know, if you can come to an event, come to an event and you can actually like meet guys that are working pipeline and network with them and it’s just kind of a different lifestyle,” Baxter said. “And it’s just… the events will also be a good place for young guys to be able to meet not only, you know, boots on the ground, the crews, but professionals.”
Baxter said the event is open to the entire community and will feature live music from the Logan Ryan Band, a former Texas pipeliner turned red-dirt country music artist. Baxter said local businesses have sponsored the event and provided giveaway prizes to show their support for the workers who patronize their establishments.
“We’re going to do some crew competitions, it’ll be a fun time, there’s food and drinks and beer and so it’ll be a fun day,” Baxter said.
Baxter said she is currently working on establishing a scholarship fund as part of the Pipeline Life brand to further support the skilled trades and those entering the field.
