Cooperative Living February 2014 - 4

EDITORIAL by Richard G. Johnstone Jr., Executive Editor
Vol. 68, No. 3
ISSN 1529-4579
RICHARD G. JOHNSTONE JR.
Executive Editor
BILL SHERROD
Editor
LAURA J. EMERY
Field Editor
JANET ROGERS BAILEY
Production Manager
LAURIE MILLS,
Apple Eye Studio, LLC
Graphic Designer
AMANDA S. CUNNINGHAM
Graphic Designer/Ad Sales
SUSAN C. GLISSON
Advertising Assistant
To contact magazine:
9 a.m.-5 p.m. M-F
Phone: (804) 346-3344
Or at any time:
Fax: (804) 346-3448
Email: bsherrod@odec.com
Web: www.co-opliving.com
Published by the VA, MD & DE Association
of Electric Cooperatives
OLIN S. DAVIS III
Chairman
LARRY C. HOWDYSHELL
Vice Chairman
JAMES E. HUFFMAN
Secretary
HERBERT R. PATRICK
Treasurer
JACKSON E. REASOR
President
RICHARD G. JOHNSTONE JR.
Executive Vice President
Board of Directors: R. Wayne Browning, R. Dodd Obenshain,
A&N; Michael Sandridge, Michael J. Keyser,
BARC; George N. Goin, Jr., Gary E. Wood, Central Virginia;
Olin S. Davis III, Michael I. Wheatley, Choptank;
Jeannette S. Everett, Steven A. Harmon, Community;
James E. Huffman, Shawn C. Hildebrand, Craig-Botetourt;
Patricia S. Dorey, J. William Andrew, Delaware;
Fletcher B. Jones, John C. Lee, Jr., Mecklenburg;
J. Steve Thomas, Sr., Greg W. White, Northern Neck;
J. Manley Garber, Stan C. Feuerberg, Northern Virginia;
Dale McNiel, Randell W. Meyers, Powell Valley;
Herbert R. Patrick, M Dale Bradshaw, Prince George;
Richard C. Oliver, Kent D. Farmer, Rappahannock;
Larry C. Howdyshell, Myron D. Rummel, Shenandoah
Valley; Frank W. Bacon, Jeffrey S. Edwards, Southside.
To advertise in Cooperative Living, contact:
Amanda Cunningham (804) 346-3344
National Advertising Representative: NCM
611 South Congress Ave., Suite 504
Austin, Texas 78704 * 800-626-1181
Member of the NCM network of
publications, reaching more than
8 million homes and businesses.
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COOPERATIVE LIVING (USPS 473300)
is published 10 times a year, monthly
except for combined March/April and
November/ December issues, by the Va., Md.
& Del. Association of Electric Cooperatives.
POSTMASTER, address changes should be
sent to: Cooperative Living, 4201 Dominion
Boulevard, Suite 101, Glen Allen, VA 23060,
(804) 346-3344. Periodicals Postage paid at
Glen Allen, VA, and additional mailing offices.
Subscription: $4.90 per year for members of
subscribing co-ops; $10 per year for all others.
ADVERTISING published is accepted on the
premise that the merchandise and services offered
are accurately described and willingly sold
to customers at the advertised price. Neither this
magazine nor the electric cooperatives in Virginia,
Maryland, and Delaware endorses any
products or services advertised herein. If any
readers encounter non-compliance with these
standards, they are asked to inform the Editor.
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2
OF THE PEOPLE ...
... by the people, for the people. These magical words from
the 19th century beautifully describe not only democratic
governments, but also the electric cooperatives that took root and grew
across the land in the 20th century, and that continue to prosper in the 21st.
The 140 men and women who constitute the
100-member House of Delegates and the 40member
Senate of Virginia convened at noon
last month, on Wednesday, Jan. 8. Since then
they've been, and for about another month
they'll be, considering thousands of proposed
changes to the Commonwealth's laws, including
bills that may impact your electric cooperative,
your community, or your profession.
As high schoolers know - but we adults
often forget - Virginia's legislature is the oldest
in the Western Hemisphere. Despite long centuries
of practice, though, our General Assembly
works well only when you and other citizens
across the state become and stay interested in
the process, involved in the discussions, and
invested in the decisions being made on your
behalf.
Every government degenerates when
trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The
people themselves, therefore, are its only safe
depositories.
-Thomas Jefferson, Virginian, 3rd U.S.
President, statesman, philosopher, inventor,
architect, farmer and founder of The University
of Virginia.
Nestled in the folds of this month's magazine,
you'll find a guide for Virginia citizens about the
General Assembly, its members, the areas they
represent, and how to contact them. Virginia's
electric cooperatives are pleased to mark this
year as the 25th anniversary of providing this
annual guide to cooperative customer-owners.
A request: Please don't allow the printer's ink
to lie fallow on the fields of paper inside the
guide; instead, use the guide's bounty of information
as a tool, to become involved, or to
enhance your involvement, in the legislative
process. The guide features the information
you'll need to contact your legislators, including
phone numbers for their Richmond and home
district offices, as well as their mail and email
addresses.
Those with computer connectivity will be
further aided by going online to the website of
the General Assembly, www.virginiageneral
assembly.gov, and also by visiting the site of the
Virginia Public Access Project, www.vpap.org.
The progress of democracy seems irresistible,
because it is the most uniform, the
most ancient, and the most permanent tendency
which is to be found in history.
-Alexis de Tocqueville, 19th-century
French political thinker, historian and author
of Democracy in America.
Areas long on land and short on people have
always posed challenges for those who live in
them. A generation after residents of American
cities had electricity, nine out of 10 farm families
did not. And large power companies understandably
were not interested in serving areas
of low density and even lower, or no, profitability.
So in rural communities across the U.S. in
the 1930s and '40s, neighbors joined together
and formed cooperatively owned utilities, to
provide themselves with electric service. Life
on the farm, and rural life generally, would
never be the same.
The democratic philosophy that helped
build humankind's greatest nation also built its
greatest network of rural electrification. Today,
over 900 electric cooperatives in 47 states, from
Hawaii to Maine, provide reliable, at-cost electric
service to more than 40 million Americans,
including you and your neighbors.
Virginia's 13 customer-owned electric cooperatives
encourage you to make full and frequent
use of the enclosed legislative guide. We
hope that you become - and stay - involved
in the legislative process, speaking out on issues
important to you, your family, your community,
and from time to time, your electric cooperative.
In a democracy, the most important thing is
not when, or even why or how you become involved
- it's only that you do.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us ... that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not
have died in vain - that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and
that government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
- Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President,
from the closing passage of his Gettysburg
Address, Nov. 19, 1863. 
Cooperative Living/February 2014
http://www.co-opliving.com http://www.virginiageneral http://www.assembly.gov http://www.facebook.com/ http://www.vpap.org
Cooperative Living February 2014

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