2004 ANNUAL REPORT TO SHAREHOLDERS CHARLES PATTON  President and Chief Operating Officer AEP TEXAS NICK AKINS  President and Chief Operating Officer SOUTHWESTERN ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY Southwestern Electric Power Com- pany, organized in 1912, is headquar- tered in Shreveport, La., and encom- passes the AEP service territories in  Louisiana, Arkansas and the portion of  Texas that participates in the South- west Power Pool. Chief industries served include  natural gas and oil production, petro- leum refining, pulp and paper manu- facturing, chemicals, food processing  and metal refining. Southwestern Electric Power  has approximately 442,000 customers. AEP Texas, headquartered in Corpus  Christi, serves the distribution consum- ers of AEP’s two electric utility operat- ing companies in the Electric Reliability  Council of Texas region – AEP Texas  Central Company, organized in 1916, and  AEP Texas North Company, organized  in 1925. Major industries served include  oil and gas extraction, food processing,  apparel, tourism, metal refining,  chemical and petroleum refining,  plastics machinery equipment, and  several military installations and  correctional facilities. AEP Texas has approximately  850,000 end-use customers.  Morris said the Chairman’s Life Saving Award is for “those among us who stand  taller than the rest of us.… We seem to attract people who are interested in public  service. We give of ourselves and we give ourselves freely.” Frisch, a distribution line coordinator in Bucyrus, Ohio, rescued a toddler who  was wandering in the middle of a busy street in Daytona, Fla. Frisch, who was  assisting with power restoration after a hurricane, visited homes in the neighbor- hood until he found the boy’s family. Phillips, community affairs manager based in McAlester, Okla., alerted his  neighbors and called 911 late one night after he noticed that a home in his neigh- borhood was filled with smoke. No one was home in the burning house, which  was destroyed, but he was able to rouse other neighbors. Some of the other homes  sustained heat damage. Myers, a stores attendant in Chickasha, Okla., helped a woman being chased by  a gun-wielding man. Myers ignored the man’s threats, drove the woman to safety  and used her cell phone to call police. The man was arrested a short while later.  AEP CHAIRMAN’S LIFE SAVING AWARD  — AEP unveiled the Chairman’s Life Saving  Award in 2004. The award recognizes the extraordinary efforts of AEP employees  to help people in need. Chairman Mike Morris presented awards to Public Ser- vice Company of Oklahoma employees Lee Ann Myers and Frank Phillips and AEP Ohio employee Steve Frisch. It wasn’t, of course. It required a great amount of skill and at least some courage.  Towboat crews who stopped the runaways deserve high praise for their work. Witnesses in Wheeling saw an example of the work done by an AEP towboat’s  crew. The crew put their boat in the path of a runaway barge, then expertly  nudged it and allowed the swift current to carry it alongside a barge attached to  the boat, where it was secured. Towboat crew members made the difficult, dan- gerous task look easy, reported witnesses. Once the threat became clear, towboat crews in the area were asked to stop the  barges. According to the Coast Guard, towboats accomplished that task in at  least four instances. Other runaway barges apparently went aground. might happen if the massive barges hit bridge piers. One did, but did not appear  to damage the Fort Henry Bridge significantly.