News

Supporting our hometown celebrations

Dec 15, 2022

Floating through the holidays … A GRDA Police boat makes its way down an Oklahoma main street during a Christmas parade earlier this season. GRDA took part in over 30 area parades over the last several weeks.

Power for Progress … a weekly column from the Grand River Dam Authority.

Usually, you see the Grand River Dam Authority Police boats floating on the waters of Grand Lake and Lake Hudson or perhaps down the scenic Illinois River. However, during the holiday season, our officers change things up just a bit.

As in years past, the GRDA Police were proud to support area holiday celebrations across the GRDA service area by bringing the boats to main street. In fact, this year our officers participated in over 30 Christmas parades, to help enhance the hometown holiday celebrations.

After all, just like a hometown holiday parade, GRDA’s participation is a tradition. For many years, our officers and other employees have been helping to make the holidays bright in this way. While our team spends much of the year patrolling and maintaining the waters, producing, and transmitting electricity and fulfilling all the other tasks to meet the GRDA mission, we appreciate the opportunity to join our friends and neighbors to celebrate the season in this way.

In fact, as a proud member of 26 chambers of commerce, economic development, and marketing associations across Oklahoma, GRDA is always right at home in Oklahoma hometowns, year-round. Of course, these are our hometowns too. These are the communities where Team GRDA members are also serving as volunteer firemen and first responders, sitting on school boards and town councils, coaching little leagues, and doing many other tasks to enhance quality of life in the community.

So, when it comes time to celebrate at a hometown parade, Team GRDA is ready to take part in that too.

GRDA is Oklahoma’s largest public power utility; fully funded by revenues from electric and water sales instead of taxes. Each day, GRDA strives to be an “Oklahoma agency of excellence” by focusing on the 5 E’s: electricity, economic development, environmental stewardship, employees, and efficiency.