Madison Daily Leader - News - 01/23/2013 - Kingbrook named RWS of Year

01/23/2013

Kingbrook named RWS of Year

By Staff

Kingbrook Rural Water System recently received special recognition from South Dakota Association of Rural Water Systems (SDARWS) at the organization's annual Technical Conference in Pierre. The water system was named Rural Water System of the Year with Jolene King named Office Manager of the Year.

Kingbrook RWS is headquartered in Arlington and managed by Randy Jencks. Kingbrook was chosen as Rural Water System of the Year through the many achievements recently completed, including: construction on an $8.5 million system-wide expansion project that has added 185 new members, a one-million gallon water tower and service to the community of Ramona; added 60 new members to the system; purchased 151 acres near Bruce for wellhead protection; funded four $500 scholarships; and contributed $5,000 toward CoBank's Sharing Success matching grant program.

According to Jencks, King has been a driving force behind the scenes of Kingbrook Rural Water. Her primary responsibility is managing all administrative functions for a large rural water system with annual revenues exceeding $4 million.

King was instrumental in evaluating water use and billing information, developing monthly status reports, and performing a water rate analysis. She had primary responsibility for administrative coordination of an $8 million system-wide expansion project that added 185 new users to the system and a 1MG water tower. That is in addition to her newly expanded role of assisting Jencks.

Through her own initiative, King identified requirements for and coordinated the transition of smartphone technology use to system operations staff.

King has worked for Kingbrook for 29 years.

Kingbrook RWS serves portions of the counties of Beadle, Brookings, Clark, Kingsbury, Lake, McCook, Minnehaha, Miner, Moody, Hamlin and Sanborn, and the towns of Erwin, Franklin, Hetland, Junius, Manchester, Unityville, Vilas, Carthage, Oseola, Winfred, Arlington, Bancroft, Badger, Howard, Iroquois, Lake Norden, Lake Preston, Montrose, Oldham and Ramona.

The Technical Conference hosted over 460 individuals and provided water and wastewater educational presentations for board members, managers and operations specialists from throughout South Dakota. Gov. Dennis Daugaard was the keynote speaker during the awards ceremony and Sen. Tim Johnson provided an update on funding programs that support rural water.