NEOSHO RAPIDS PROPOSES SALE OF CITY NATURAL
GAS SYSTEM TO BLACK HILLS ENERGY

Black Hills Contact Information:
Curt Floerchinger, Black Hills Energy (785) 764-6492
24-Hour Media Relations, Black Hills Energy (866) 243-9002

NEOSHO RAPIDS, Kan., March 20, 2009 – The six-member Neosho Rapids city council voted unanimously at the March 11 council meeting to sell the city-owned natural gas distribution system to public utility Black Hills Energy for $64,664. The town’s registered voters will get their opportunity to approve the measure at a special election on Tuesday, April 21, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Neosho Rapids Community Center.

“This is a very important issue to our community, and we urge everyone who can to come out and vote,” said Neosho Rapids Mayor Jenny Wagers. Neosho Rapids has approximately 275 residents and 115 homes. “Black Hills Energy and its predecessor companies have been in charge of maintenance, new construction and emergency response here in Neosho Rapids for more than 20 years, so it’s natural to have them buy our system. As part of Black Hills, we would pay competitive natural gas prices through Black Hills Energy’s purchasing processes, and the company’s base rates for service and delivery are frozen until 2011.

“We would benefit from Black Hills Energy’s size as well,” said Wagers of the company, which already serves 108,000 natural gas customers in Kansas and 552,000 company-wide. “Because of its scale, Black Hills can offer customers and the community advantages that we just can’t reasonably provide.”

Those advantages include the financial resources to maintain system safety and reliability and make the investments necessary to keep it modern and compliant to all codes and regulations, according to Ivan Vancas, Black Hills Energy’s vice president of operations for Kansas and Colorado. “A wider variety of billing options and products and services, including those both newly initiated and currently under development, will be available to many of these customers for the first time,” he said.

Vancas said the mutual benefits to the town and the company make it an ideal win-win situation. “We partner in the communities we serve, offering economic development tools and expertise, community partnerships and other improvement efforts,” Vancas said. “We’ve already heard from residents who are looking forward to our CheckLINE auto-withdrawal payment option.”

Representatives of Black Hills Energy will be in Neosho Rapids between now and the April 21 special election to provide information to residents. A team of employees will be available to answer questions about the sale at the annual pancake breakfast on Saturday, April 4, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Community Center. And a group of residents who support the sale also will be going door to door in the two weeks prior to the election, providing information and answering questions.

“We consider open communication with our customers to be a natural part of doing business,” Vancas said. “We gladly support the community’s need to know all they can about this proposed transaction in order to make an educated decision at the polls on April 21. It’s our company’s vision to be the energy partner of choice. We are confident in our ability to serve the people of Neosho Rapids, and would look forward to providing new levels of service and support.”

After the election, further necessary steps would include review and approval of the sale by the Kansas Corporation Commission, which oversees all public utilities in the state.

ABOUT BLACK HILLS CORPORATION
Black Hills Corp., a diversified energy company with a tradition of exemplary service and a vision to be the energy partner of choice, is based in Rapid City, S.D., with corporate offices in Golden, Colo., and Omaha, Neb. The company serves 750,000 utility customers in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. The company’s non-regulated businesses generate wholesale electricity, produce natural gas, oil and coal, and market energy. More information is available at www.blackhillscorp.com.

ABOUT BLACK HILLS ENERGY
Black Hills Energy, a subsidiary of Black Hills Corp., serves approximately 108,000 natural gas customers in 54 Kansas communities. More information is available at www.blackhillsenergy.com.

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