Butler Rural Electric Cooperative

Ron Miller and Mark Radtke stand next to a Model A Ford-powered sprint car in the Salty Dog Museum.

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.

Kathy Fleenor, a pediatric physical therapist from the early-intervention division of Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities, helps Lucas walk on the infant treadmill for the first time.

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.

Blazing hot days in August, bone-chilling cold days in February — what do those weather extremes have to do with the cost of electricity? More than the bottom line on your electric bill.

Explaining the connection is a big part of the workday for Kara Snyder, marketing and key accounts manager at Butler Rural Electric Cooperative in Oxford, about 40 miles north of Cincinnati.

At the center of Snyder’s conversations are little boxes containing radio-controlled switches that can be installed on certain kinds of water heaters and many air-conditioning systems.