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Because the total energy use of most small towns can be easily measured, full participation by all the residents was virtually a necessity. Middlebury schools sponsored lectures and films on conservation. Ministers in their pulpits preached the benefits of being energy efficient. The 500 pupils of Summerside's Greenfield Elementary School filled every available inch of wall space with imaginative collages bearing such messages as CUT BACK, JACK and LESS WATER, DAUGHTER. Monterey Police Chief Douglas Lyman went so far as to get up every morning and drive to the hospital in nearby Great Barrington to shave and clean up. Said Lyman: "I haven't taken a bath or shaved at home since this whole thing started."
When the final kilowatts were tallied, there were three official winners in the competition, but no real losers. Middlebury's "Alternity" week (an abbreviation of alternative energy for eternity) was named as the best overall conservation effort. St. Stephen (pop. 6,000), a prosperous fishing and lumbering town near the U.S. border, sliced 17.5% off its electricity consumption, edging out Monterey's 15.6% drop, to take the overall energy reduction award. The small pulp and paper center of Grand Falls-Windsor (combined pop. 15,000) was dubbed the most creative for having a town crier stalk through the streets exhorting the townspeople to turn off unnecessary lights and appliances. Regardless of their meter readings, most participants were charged up with a new sense of civic unity after the contest. Said Millie Walsh of Monterey: "I felt we'd won before any of this, and I still do. We're still on a high, with or without first place."