Approximately 1,150 people of all ages attended the 65th Annual Meeting of Farmers’ Electric Cooperative Tuesday night (June 3) at the Gary Dickinson Performing Arts Center in Chillicothe.
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The members attending the meeting re-elected three members to the cooperative’s board of directors and 110 door prizes were given away, including a 52-inch big screen television won by Donna Horton of Trenton. Unofficial registration tallies totaled 558 members.
FEC member/owner Gary Fak, Acting Sergeant Major of the 4th Chemical Battalion, 95th Division (IT), led the members in the Pledge of Allegiance. Sgt. Major Fak is a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, including three purple hearts, while serving in the 7th Marine Infantry, Delta Company.
Following the Pledge of Allegiance, FEC employee Don Boswell gave the invocation.
Re-elected to FEC’s Board of Directors were Ron Cornett, Pattonsburg; Richard Anderson, Carrollton; and Warren Hoyt, Dawn. They were elected to serve through the June 2006 annual meeting of the cooperative.
Board President Ron Cornett called the meeting to order shortly after 7 p.m. Mr. Cornett focused his speech on FEC’s current rate structure, noting the 13 years without a rate increase, but adding the “cheap date wasn’t going to be quite so cheap in the future.” He said while FEC rates would continue to be competitive in all areas, governmental regulations would probably force a change in the cooperative rate structure in the foreseeable future.
FEC Executive Vice-President and CEO Dan Bryan echoed Cornett’s comments.
“Every year I tell you how subject we and you are to the whims of our political system,” Mr. Bryan said. “In the last four years our power supplier, Associated Electric Cooperative, has spent approximately $350 million on meeting environmental standards…that is money that will have to be covered by rate payers one of these days.”
Mr. Bryan noted that President George Bush’s “Clear Skies” program would also require a significant monetary increase to Associated Electric Cooperative to comply with the environmental standards set forth by the federal government.
“The total environmental costs from the Clear Skies program is expected to top $521 million over the next 10 to 15 years,” Mr. Bryan explained. “In the near future the total environmental costs to our power supplier will top the $1 billion mark.”
“This will effect your electric rate,” Bryan continued.
Bryan said, that as a result of the environmental standards that have been established and will be put into place in the future, he expected the cooperative to have a new electric rate within a year.
He also said that electric energy consumers would have future environmental “lugs” to pay when the federal government enacted those standards. Bryan stressed that Congressman Sam Graves and Senator Kit Bond are supporting the electric cooperatives in Washington, D.C.
“The bottom line is this,” Bryan said. “your cooperative is still working for you….our rates…our service….our overall effort is still focused on you. As we look to the future, we probably see a rate increase a little more clearly than we did one year ago.”
“Considering the environmental standards currently in place and the new environmental standards that are bing proposed our cost of doing business will continue to rise and we will have to make a rate adjustment.”
FEC attorney Lloyd Cleaveland conducted the business meeting of the cooperative, which included the election of the three directors to the board, as well as the election of the 2004 Committee on Nominations. Elected to the Committee on Nominations were Kenneth Lee, Dennis Farmer, James Water, Leroy Dominique, Charlotte Miller, Judy Holcer and Dennis Widhalm.
President Cornett also presented Mr. Cleaveland with a special gift, a unique electric meter lamp, signifying 52 years of outstanding service to Farmers’ Electric Cooperative.
The 2004 Annual Meeting will be held Tuesday, June 1.