Fallen lineman gets a lasting tribute

Wife of former Lyons man who died on the job attends statue unveiling

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Staff writer

When Lyons resident Kelly Skiles, 53, died March 29, 2011, he died doing a job he felt needed to be done – and which many seem happy to either take for granted or complain about.

Skiles worked for Com Ed in Crystal Lake, Ill., as an overhead electrician – or what’s commonly referred to as a lineman. And as his wife Linda pointed out, whatever you call the job, it is a thankless one.

“The guys get called out in the middle of the night, after they’ve already worked an eight-hour day,” said Linda, whose husband would often take coffee and food to We Energies workers sent out to repair downed lines near the couple’s home in Lyons. “When there is storm trouble and people don’t have their electricity on, (people) can be out there screaming at them.

“And these guys are working around the clock.”

On March 21 of this year, Kelly Skiles and fellow lineman Tim Miller – who were both killed on the job – were honored with a permanent sculpture in memorial of their work at the Com Ed office in Crystal Lake.

Linda witnessed the unveiling of the sculpture, which was done by Erik Blome. The molds for the sculpture were poured a day after Christmas in 2011.

Mark Schleehauf, a Com Ed Crystal Lake employee, spearheaded the project. He is a fellow lineman.

“We really wanted to see it through to completion,” Linda said.

Linda’s husband, Kelly, was working on switching out a power pole March 23 of last year when he died. The weather was sunny and bright, with no storms in the forecast.

Linda explained that, in order to switch out the pole, the top of the pole is cut down, and then brought down in the bucket extension from a truck.

“The pole started wobbling,” said Linda of the incident. She wasn’t there, but Kelly’s coworkers told her what happened. The worker trying to control the pole lost control of it after cutting it down with a chainsaw, and the pole fell out of the bucket.

“Everyone took off running. Kelly took off running,” said Linda. “It didn’t fall straight down.

“He had his hard hat on. He had all his protective gear on,” she added. “But it was instant.”

Following the funeral, Linda was contacted about putting together a memorial not only for her husband, but for Miller, who was electrocuted in an incident in 2000.

“When this (her husband’s death) happened, they were like, ‘We need to have something bigger and better,’” Linda said. “They really wanted something to be unique and better.”

The sculpture depicts linemen at work, doing the job that so many take for granted. It is Linda’s hope that the exposure of the new sculpture and her husband’s story will help raise the profile of men working at a thankless job – a job where they tend to only hear the complaints and never praise.

“People don’t think of a lineman in that capacity, unless they know someone who does that,” Linda said. “But it’s for all linemen. It’s a great reminder of what they do.”