Jeff McCallister

Gross, a 45-year member of Mount Gilead-based Consolidated Cooperative and retired from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife, says he has an “overwhelming fascination and appreciation for the beauty, complexity, and intricacy of the natural world.”

That certainly comes across in his writing and contributes to the popularity and longevity of “Woods, Waters, and Wildlife,” but he says there’s more to it as well.

“Our guys are really good about making sure they answer everyone’s questions, and they’ll stick around as long as they need to,” says Candi Fisher, member engagement coordinator at South Central Power, who coordinates the mobile safety demonstrations for the co-op. “They could tell this older gentleman wanted to talk to them and so they went over to say hello.”

“You saved my life,” the man said. 

“That’s not something you hear every day,” Fisher says. “But he was very insistent. He made a special trip there that day to thank the guys who had saved his life.”

Emily’s story is typical for co-op members. They get their electricity from, and pay their bills to, one of Ohio’s 25 electric distribution cooperatives; usually vote in the election for the co-op’s board of directors; and maybe attend the annual meeting of members. They might even get capital credits in the form of a check or a bill credit at the end of the year when the not-for-profit co-op’s revenues outpace its expenses.

For the vast majority of time, no one really thinks about electricity or where it comes from, or how it gets to that lightbulb. It’s only during that fraction of a percent of the hours in a year when power is not available that the grid comes to public attention.

But what is ‘the grid’?

In the United States, the electricity industry has a generating capacity of 1.1 million megawatts, serving up electricity to nearly every home and business — including over a million Ohioans and 42 million people across the country who are served by electric cooperatives.  

Rise to the top

Matt Berry and Tim Street served similar roles at two Ohio distribution cooperatives in 2017 — Street was director of communications and member services at Mid-Ohio Energy Cooperative in Kenton, while Berry was manager of community and customer relations at St. Marys-based Midwest Electric — when the statewide cooperative association initiated a leadership-training program called Leadership Edge for co-op employees around Ohio. 

As it turns out, Thornburgh’s donation — an average of $6 per year, a few nickels and dimes at a time — helped LCEC boost a program that helped her own family. One of LCEC’s Operation Round Up grants helped RTC Industries in Bellefontaine to provide a transition program for young adults with developmental disabilities.

ExploreAg is Ohio Farm Bureau’s signature agricultural literacy and workforce development program. The majority of its offerings, which are free, are week- and weekend-long immersion camps for high school students. Teens get a broad-spectrum look at agriculture and related STEM fields, develop their leadership and collaboration skills, and prepare for college and/or a career.

As the co-ops organized resources to restore the systems to turn power back on to their members, the next several days brought alternating extreme heat and additional powerful storm systems that made the work of restoring service both more dangerous and more plentiful. Problems on AEP’s high-voltage transmission network resulted in more than 100,000 central Ohio homes and businesses having their power intentionally shut off for long stretches of time.

What’s the peak?

It’s important that consumer-members are aware of those peaks because electric rates for the entire year are based on the highest points of usage during the year, referred to as “peak demand.” 

“I’ve lived in the country my whole life, so honestly, I’m used to it,” Judy says. “We were actually thankful because we knew that there were linemen already out working on the problem even by the time we called it in, but that was when we got our generator.”