Electric cooperatives across Ohio had a busy and largely successful 2018, continuing to improve the reliability of your electric service while striving to hold down cost.
The year’s highlights:
Just to the west of Cleveland and a little south of Lake Erie, Lorain-Medina Rural Electric Cooperative (LMRE) serves more than 16,700 consumer-members on 1,541 miles of electrical line across five counties. Hometown pride is a defining characteristic of the people in the area, who believe in bettering the community and looking out for one another. LMRE prioritizes providing opportunities for their youth.
Thirty-two employees of Ohio electric cooperatives and generation facilities graduated from the Cooperative Leadership Edge program on December 17.
Cooperative Leadership Edge is a comprehensive training program for current managers who are seeking to develop the necessary skills to effectively lead people at all levels of an organization.
Students must complete four core courses, two elective courses, attend an OEC conference, and complete a capstone project. They also receive one-on-one leadership coaching, and DISC and EQi assessments.
2019 graduates include:
The five sculptors know how important their role is. Within their capable hands is a tradition that some will experience for the first time this year and others perhaps the fiftieth time — one that thousands of people look forward to every year.
“The butter sculpture display is one of the most loved traditions of the Ohio State Fair,” says Jenny Hubble, senior vice president of communications for the American Dairy Association Mideast, which represents dairy farmers in Ohio and West Virginia. “Ohio’s dairy farmers are proud to support it.”
Before there were bridges across the mighty, sometimes swift and muddy Ohio River, there were dozens of ferries that carried people, cargo, and the vehicles of the day from Ohio to Kentucky and West Virginia. Today, there are nearly 50 bridges, but only three ferries remain. Each of those that still ply their trade is cherished.
Layhigh Road is a little-traveled ribbon of asphalt in rural western Butler County. Occasionally, however, a traveler might encounter a sleek, black locomotive emerging from the woods and thundering down the track that crosses Layhigh behind an X-shaped crossbuck. As quickly as the locomotive appears, it fades away, a phantom train in broad daylight.
With its tattered seat and uneven slats, the ladderback chair looks rather uncomfortable, but it was pioneer James Galloway’s best chair. “Since this was the ‘guest chair,’ it’s where Tecumseh sat whenever he visited,” says Catherine Wilson, director of the Greene County Ohio Historical Society in Xenia.