Butler Rural Electric Cooperative
Maps make for good reading. In the names of places, you’ll find some history, drama, romance, biography, and even some fiction — or at least some mistakes. All that and more lies within a map covering College Corner, Ohio. It’s a quaint place, an unassuming, long-established village with quirks that few towns anywhere could claim.
Electric cooperatives across Ohio join the nation this month in honoring veterans of the U.S. armed forces — America’s courageous protectors, defenders, and heroes. Not only do the co-ops acknowledge veterans’ dedication to our country, but we are truly grateful for the unique strengths and noble characteristics they bring to the co-op family.
We recognize all of our veteran-employees, and here, we talk to a few of them.
Somewhere among the archives belonging to Pioneer Electric Cooperative in Piqua is buried a postcard from a member notifying the cooperative that the power was out at his home.
“…So, the next time that you are out here, please check it out,” says Nanci McMaken, paraphrasing the document. McMaken, vice president and chief communications officer at Pioneer Electric, has seen lots of changes during her 36 years at the co-op, which serves 16,700 members in Champaign, Shelby, and Miami counties — but methods of communication has been a big one.
Chilled, it was President George Washington’s favorite dessert. Today, rural folk throughout the eastern U.S. hunt this delectable wild fruit each fall, keeping their favorite pawpaw patch as secret as they would their best spring morel mushroom woods.
Chris Chmiel first became interested in pawpaws while in college at Ohio University. “I like to hike, and I began noticing pawpaws on the ground in the woods, just rotting, going to waste,” he says.
The 30 or so therapy horses of Seven Oaks Farm may be little, but they have a big impact. Owner Lisa Moad brings the horses around to more than 50 care facilities and numerous Ronald McDonald houses to bring comfort to the residents and guests, and joins with several police departments to help with community and anti-bullying efforts.
At the beginning of March 2017, after what had been, to that point, an unusually mild winter, a huge storm system came through southern Ohio and northern Kentucky, bringing with it winds that brought down trees and power lines and causing power outages in large swaths of the area.
Electric cooperatives do everything they can — regular maintenance, tree-trimming, etc. — to prevent such outages, but sometimes, Mother Nature has her own ideas. When outages do happen, the co-ops are ready.
The Salty Dog Museum, a top-notch assemblage of Model T and A Fords in Shandon, Ohio, came into being out of necessity for Ron Miller, his son B.J., and their friend Mark Radtke.
Before they opened the museum, the vehicles were spilling out of their backyards and garages.
“Everybody collects something, and we happen to collect antique vehicles and their stories,” Radtke says.
Not-for-profit electric cooperatives have a responsibility not only to fulfill the needs of their consumer-members, but to help their neighbors in need. To that end, Operation Round Up was born.
Operation Round Up is a voluntary program in which more than 200 electric cooperatives across the country participate, including most Ohio electric cooperatives. The programs go by different names, but they all operate under the same premise: Small change makes a big impact in communities all across Ohio.
