Homer T. Bone Award

The Homer T. Bone Award is presented to honor an elected official serving and representing constituents in the NWPPA service territory that have demonstrated sustained and remarkable work on behalf of public power. It is presented at NWPPA’s Annual Membership Meeting in May.

In 2014, NWPPA named an association award after Sen. Homer T. Bone in honor of his lifetime work on behalf of public power. Bone was instrumental in fathering public power in Washington state. He devoted much of his energetic political career going to bat for publicly owned utilities, for which he became known both in Washington state and nationally as "the father of public power." In the power struggle over control of the Bonneville Dam Project between the Interior Department and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the battle threatened to derail the project. Bone fashioned the compromise that kept it alive and insured that public and cooperatively owned utilities were given preference for purchasing the low-cost, federally produced electricity—a critical outcome for NWPPA members to this day.

Eligibility: Any state or federal legislator (elected official) serving and representing constituents in the NWPPA service territory that have demonstrated sustained and remarkable work on behalf of public power.