Cooperative Living July 2014 - 4

VIEWPOINT by Richard G. Johnstone Jr., Executive Editor
Vol. 68, No. 7
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
Advertising 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.
PRESSRUN . . . . . . 503,129
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.
DERRING-DOBY DARING DOERS
Big ideas need bold action to take wing. Few dreams in the 1930s seemed more
daunting than delivering electricity to far-flung farmhouses. That is, until common
folks with uncommon grit joined together in communities across the land.
he present moment may be all that we
have, but the past is still always present.
Who we are as individuals, as Virginians,
as Americans and as humans is an amalgam
of all the deeds and misdeeds, brilliance
and bumbling, great undertakings and failed
enterprises, fantastical ideas and feats and
foibles of all those who came before.
The history of the world is writ large with
lots of adventures and inventions, accomplishments
and advances. But no big idea has taken
wing without bold action.
It takes derring-do by daring doers to turn
dreams into reality. In the rural America of the
1930s, only one home in 10 had electric service.
Traditional utilities were just not able to
profitably serve such far-flung regions, with
only two or three farmhouses along every mile
of rural road.
So who but daring doers would be audacious
enough to take on, in the midst of the
Great Depression, such a titanic task, one that
would ultimately become among the largest
self-help projects in our nation's history?
If necessity is indeed the mother of invention,
then audacity must surely be its father.
And who but daring doers would then go
door to door in nearly 1,000 communities
across the country, asking their neighbors to
contribute seed money and signatures to form
a new kind of cooperative, one designed to deliver
electricity to rural homes and businesses?
The Book of Proverbs tells us that " without
a vision, the people perish. " Without persistent
care, though, visions perish too.
So who but daring doers would persist in
their vision to spread electric service across the
land and, despite the scarcity of resources during
World War II, have pretty much hooked up
Rural America by the 1950s?
All of which is why the story of electric
cooperatives is more about people than about
poles, more about building communities than
about building bottom lines. Each local electric
cooperative bears testament to the power of
neighbors joining together to attempt - and
achieve - great things.
And achieve great things they did.
By the 1950s, as urban Americans were
expressing wonder over television and air
conditioning, rural Americans were expressing
2
T
thanks over light itself, as
millions of incandescent
candles pierced the darkness
from the edges of
Washington State to the
outskirts of Washington,
D.C.
As rural residents
pulled the cord on the
humble bulb hanging
overhead in thousands of
farm kitchens, they brought to life a new era.
The centuries-old regimen of hauling water
from creeks and ponds, building wood fires,
and calibrating farm and family life around the
rising and setting of the sun gave way to electrical
and electronic marvels that would allow
our farms to feed the world, and our citizens
to spread out across the land, to enjoy in every
dusty crossroads community the same comforts
formerly reserved for city dwellers in
Richmond and Norfolk and Roanoke.
The federal government provided a helping
hand, too, in the form of loans and technical
support. The electrification of rural America
was then, and remains today, one of the greatest
public-private partnerships in our nation's
history.
Richard Johnstone
The past still resonates today in your
cooperative's commitment to the communities
it serves. You and your neighbors own the
cooperative. So prompt service and community
spirit aren't part of a business plan; they're part
of being a good neighbor.
Another part of being a good neighbor is
visiting across the fence on a regular basis.
Through the pages of Cooperative Living
magazine, Virginia's 12 cooperatives have been
keeping their members informed since 1946.
This magazine is a living reminder of the
commitment made, in a very different world,
by common folks with uncommon grit, who
saw an opportunity to improve their lives and
their community, and worked together with
their neighbors to make it happen.
So every time we flip a light switch, push a
dryer button, adjust a thermostat, turn on the
oven, log on to a computer, or sit down and
watch TV, the past is present with us. Big ideas
and bold action by daring doers three generations
ago still reside with us today. 
Cooperative Living/July 2014
http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living July 2014

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