February 2026

Safe, Clean, Reliable, and Affordable: I often use these words to describe the electric power supply that Buckeye Power and all of the electric cooperatives around the state strive to provide to our member-consumers. Each of these words is important to us, and each has a different measure of success.

Reliable may be the easiest for you to observe. Do the lights come on every day? Is the supply adequate for your needs? When something occasionally causes a power outage, is power restored quickly?

The inside of a futuristic car.

In a few years, you may be able to spend your morning commute reading a book, checking e-mail, or even napping, thanks to self-driving car technology.

While they aren’t exactly as high-functioning as KITT, the crime-fighting black Camaro from the old Knight Rider TV series, autonomous vehicles from the likes of Google, Tesla, and other companies have proven that we are on the cusp of being able to take our hands off the wheel.

Houseplants are a widely popular addition in many homes. For some people, though, the thought of growing a houseplant has them seeing only brown instead of green. They may think their indoor growing conditions are less than optimal, or maybe they simply think that houseplants are too fussy or take too much time.

A picture of the street sign named after Erma Bombeck

Long before mothers were blogging about their daily lives, Erma Bombeck’s syndicated newspaper column — “At Wit’s End” — acquired a legion of faithful followers by mixing her musings about marriage and motherhood with healthy doses of humor. Born and raised in Dayton, Erma certainly knew her subject. She and her husband, Bill, had three school-age children when, at age 37, she began writing the column on a makeshift desk in a bedroom of her suburban Centerville home.

A family in Guatemala poses together for a picture.

I love this time of year. January, for me, is a time of optimism, when I see all the possibilities ahead of us, which both invite us into the unknown and challenge us to improve.

At the same time, the new year affords us the opportunity to look back at the year that was. Before going into our 2018 priorities, let’s celebrate 2017 — which, looking back, turned out to be a historic year for Ohio electric cooperatives. It was a year in which we:

A group sits around a table as two impersonators visit with them.

Attractions across Ohio host dining events throughout the year that feature more than just food — the guests of honor include historic figures (actors, impersonators, or simply historians with a flair for the dramatic, most with Ohio ties) and make for enriching experiences that combine a dash of education with a huge helping of dinner theater.

A fake duck sits next to a gun and book.

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) is considered the father of modern-day wildlife management in North America; his 1933 book, Game Management, is a classic. I’m fortunate to own a copy of the second printing (1936) and recently wondered what it might be worth, so I contacted Jim Casada of Rock Hill, S.C., a fellow outdoors writer and an expert on collectible outdoor books.