Serving the community since 1966

OUR History

​​Poetry Water Supply Corporation

In 1966, a group of residents from Poetry decided to contact FHA about borrowing money for the purpose of furnishing a water supply to serve individuals in the Poetry community. FHA required at least 100 memberships paid for up front and there were 129, which made the deal possible. In the beginning, the inital Board of Directors comprised of J.R Stricktland, Herman Mayhew Jr.,Jack Mullins, Lon Akin Jr., and J.D. Smith managed the system. They later hired Cecil Darr to maintain the pump station, (which consisted of a pressurized tank and one ground storage tank), read meters and do billing under the supervision of CPA, John Hinton.

In 1980, Cecil Darr was given the title as manager and ran the business from a spare bedroom in his home.

In 1993, the Board of Directors voted to construct a used 250,000 gallon elevated storage tower to replace the pressure tank. Now the system consists of 2 ground storage tanks and one elevated tower.

In 1997, due to the increased membership, Scharlene Darr was hired as bookkeeper while Cecil managed the system.

Because Cecil and Scharlene and many of the directors were generous enough to run the business out of their own homes for 30 years, rate increases were minimal and enough money was saved to pay cash for the new office building.

With increased state regulations that require 2 licensed operators when membership totals 1,000, the Board of Directors hired Phillip Keys as manager/operator, preparing for an increase in membership. Because of our enormous growth, from 129 to 973 memberships, Poetry W.S.C. found it necessary to build an office building. The Board of Directors voted to build an office and hire Lori Harwell for secretarial work. Thanks to the donation of land by Hunt Oil Company, we were able to situate the office next to the pump station. The building was completed in September of 1999, debt free.

With the customer base still growing the search for additional water has become a major concern. The engineering firm Velvin & Weeks was hired to do a needs study and begin seeking out additional water.

After receiving water from the Terrell Water Treatment plant since 1966, The City of Terrell decided it was to costly to upgrade it and chose to purchase water from NTMWD. Poetry entered into a new contract with Terrell in 2007 for enough water to satisfy normal growth for many years to come.