I retired almost two years ago as Director of Alumni Relations at Tarleton State University and have
since tried to remain free of those controversies or conflicts which were once a part of my daily life. I
spent more than fifteen years simply making things work, helping bring individuals or organizations
together to arrive at a workable solution to almost any issue. I was good at it; I thought that no problem
was too big or small that I couldn’t get people to cooperate at some level. Well, Lone Star Transmission
has finally burst my bubble. I have tried to be understanding, I have tried to be flexible, and I have
tried to believe that they have the best interest of our citizens in mind, but I have never found an
organization as difficult to work with. If they had kept their word, you wouldn’t be hearing from me and
you wouldn’t be enduring all of those missiles from Jon Koonsman. Lone Star is like the governor in “The
Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”, they’re a song and dance man. You can never speak to anyone who has
the authority to make a decision. What’s true today is not true tomorrow, what they giveth today is gone
two weeks from now; the easement location is here today and fifty feet to the south next week. Now
you tell me that the line will carry power from other generating sources when you persisted in claiming
that it was only from wind generation.
Jon Koonsman is my son. He is brilliant, he is opinionated, he is hardheaded, and he even wears on his old
dad occasionally, but he is dead right about Lone Star Transmissions. They are showing us the dark side
of capitalism; they are the poster child for the erosion of business ethics in corporate America. I have
been personally involved in the negotiations for the utility easement across our land but have tried to
stay out of the more public part of the controversy; however, the recent letter to the editor from Lone
Star stirred me to write. It seems like a simple thing, but really, signing a letter “Lone Star
Transmission”… are we dealing with real people or have we finally reached the point where a non-human
is in control? Until I reached the bottom of the letter, I thought that I might have finally found
someone in authority to talk to.
You may be tiring of “The Big Tree” but to my family, friends, and neighbors it has become a rallying
point. It may be us today but it may be you tomorrow. Unfortunately we have become so comfortable and
complacent that someone else’s problem is simply … “someone else’s problem”. I am thankful for those
other landowners who have had the backbone to stand up and fight what is simply a perversion of the
concept of Imminent Domain. This is not for the “common good”. When you choose to destroy a gift that
probably witnessed the birth of this nation, you simply subvert the notion that this nation was founded
on the basis of the “common good”.
I have tried to avoid being too cynical about this issue. It will have a positive outcome, my children have
learned what it means to support a cause, to have to defend something that you really belief in, to have
to make personal sacrifices because something is just not right. These are things that cannot be
taught… you have to simply learn them.
A man once said that “technology is what we use to bring back what we had before technology”. I am not
sure that I understand all of the implications of that statement but I don’t think that any amount of
technology will bring back the “The Big Tree”; instead technology seems determined to destroy her. I
guess being born before anyone perceived the whole concept of technology doesn’t really mean anything.
I am a patient man, but I have had enough. Lone Star Transmission, you have refused to keep your word
to me, you have prolonged a situation that could have been resolved months ago, and you have destroyed
my belief that you will eventually do what’s right. So, if you’re still determined to grind “The Big Tree”,
you may just get to grind me with it.
Paul Koonsman
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