Arkansas Valley Electric Cooperative
About Arkansas Valley Electric Cooperative
Arkansas Valley Electric Cooperative pledges to offer safe, reliable, affordable energy to our member-owners consistent with sound business principles within the electric industry. You can read more on their about page.
About The Project
Mission: Execute a complete platform migration from WordPress to Laravel for this Arkansas electric cooperative, addressing critical issues with content organization and visual design. The engagement required building an intuitive member-facing website with streamlined navigation and a distinctive interactive feature: integrating the cooperative's mascot, Willy Wirehands, as a dynamic announcement delivery system on the homepage.
Technologies Used: Laravel (PHP Backend Framework), Tailwind CSS (Utility-First Styling), FLEX360 CMS (Content Management), MySQL (Database), Dynamic Mascot Animation System, Responsive Design.
Links
Before: From the Web Archives
After: Visit new live website
Summary
The most technically interesting aspect of this project was implementing the dynamic mascot announcement system for the homepage hero section. The client's mascot, Willy Wirehands, serves as a personable communication channel between the cooperative and its members—appearing with a speech bubble when administrators activate an announcement, or cheerfully waving from behind the hero content when no announcement is active.
This conditional rendering system required careful coordination between the CMS backend (where administrators toggle announcements and compose messages) and the frontend display logic that determines Willy's positioning and visibility state. The implementation ensures seamless transitions while maintaining the playful brand personality the cooperative wanted to convey.
The broader platform migration addressed the client's core pain points: restructuring disorganized content into an intuitive navigation architecture and delivering a modern, visually engaging design that reflects the cooperative's commitment to serving their member-owners. The result is a professional utility website that successfully balances approachability with functionality.