“At the end of the day, you were the life and blood of the community, or a big piece of it.”
That line is part of a eulogy, but it’s not for a person.
It’s for a power plant – a coal-fired plant that was part of the fabric of the Coshocton County landscape and community for 63 years.
At one point, the AEP Conesville Power Plant just south of Coshocton employed more than 600 people, and provided power for millions of homes. The 805-foot stacks were a sign of economic stability for decades in Conesville – until April 2020, when the plant ceased operations.
In December 2021, that last remaining unit was demolished.
The tall stacks that were visible for miles are gone. Jobs axed. Property tax funds for local schools evaporated.
Deeply affected by this transition, residents of Coshocton County commemorated its loss and what its 63 years meant to the community through a series of eulogies. Those eulogies, part of a performance the residents called “Calling Hours,” were performed in a one-night production on July 17 at the Mershon Theater at the Ohio State University.
The eulogies, written from the perspective of fictional residents of Coshocton County, are described as a “theatrical memorial.” It was first performed in May of 2023 in downtown Coshocton, about 70 miles east of Columbus.
The cast were unnamed characters, including a trucker, an AEP supervisor, a school administrator, a resident, three brothers who worked for AEP, a pastor and five children. Some performed in groups, while others spoke alone. All characters were played by residents of Coshocton County.
The overwhelming theme of those eulogies was a sense of loss in the community – the loss of hundreds of jobs, but also a loss of something that served as a comfort to the community. The power plant was an iconic symbol in Coshocton County that connected people. Characters in “Calling Hours” noted negative aspects of the plant, such as the environmental impact of mining and burning coal, but the overwhelming belief was that its loss was difficult.
Projected behind the stage were charcoal drawings of the plant, drawn and animated by Michael Schmidt. Guitarist Johnny Dotson played in between the eulogies.
Lester McCurdy, a math teacher at Ridgewood High School, played the trucker and said it was a “good experience.”
His sons Ben and Ian McCurdy were also in the play as Child Four and Child Five.
McCurdy believes the takeaway of “Calling Hours” should be “the impact that a closure has on a community.”
“Places that may have this happen to [them] in the future, they need to start thinking about it and what that impact can be and how they can try to mitigate it as much as possible,” McCurdy said.
Scott Thompson, another resident of Coshocton county, played AEP Brother Two.
Since the play consists of only eulogies, the performers had their lines on paper in front of them and read them as they performed, much as speakers would do at a funeral.
“It was a little bit of a safety net, knowing that I had my script with me,” Thompson said.
Although Thompson never worked at the plant, he had friends who did, and he noted that AEP was an active part of the community.
“We’ve lost a lot of manufacturing jobs, so we’re in some transition right now,” he said about post-closure life in Coshocton.
“I think we’re rebounding,” Thompson said.
Though the closure of the AEP Conesville plant sent shockwaves through the county, the decline in manufacturing jobs isn’t new to residents, who have witnessed decades of factory closures.
This is addressed in Eulogy Six, performed by Bryan Kittner as the Pastor: “Before AEP Conesville there was West-Rock; before that, Novelty; before that Pretty Products, Steel Ceilings, Ansell Edmont, Shaw Barton/JII, GE. All closed. Workers dispersed. Empty pockets. Upheaval.”
WestRock is a packing container plant that closed last year. Ansell Edmont is an industrial glove manufacturer that was demolished in 2019. The rubber goods manufacturer Pretty Products closed back in 2007. All of them were located in Coshocton County.
And now, AEP Conesville, just south of Coshocton, is part of that list. At the height of its operations, more than 600 people worked there, when all six generating units were running. At that time, it also put out 2,000 megawatts – which provided electricity for 2 million homes across the region.
“That’s a lot of lights, laundry machines running, houses heated, and cooled, and now, these days, a lot of devices charged,” said the “AEP Supervisor” in his eulogy, played by Denny Blanford.
One of the people who worked behind the scenes supporting the production was Elena Irwin, the faculty director of the Ohio State University’s Sustainability Institute.
“Our institute provided an initial seed grant to help the writing of the play, and it kind of was born from that,” said Irwin.
Irwin cited Jeffrey Jacquet, an associate professor of rural sociology at Ohio State and the work he did studying the transition of the community after AEP Coneville’s closing.
“Through his research, [he] realized there was a lack of closure, and kind of that’s how the idea of a eulogy got born,” Irwin said.
Irwin saw the production last summer in Coshocton and helped to bring it to Ohio State in July.
“We are the consumers of the energy and of the electricity that was produced and it’s completely invisible to us, all the effort and the impact of the plant closing,” she said. “This was a way to make the invisible visible.”
Ellie Owen writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.