I’d like to thank everyone who was able to attend our Annual Meeting for their participation in your cooperative. There are seven core principles that are the basis of the cooperative business model, and our Annual Meeting demonstrates several of them. Cooperative Principle #1 is Voluntary and Open Membership. Everyone who has an account with Midwest is a member-owner of our cooperative and invited to participate. Principle #2 is Democratic Member Control which is why all members are invited to vote for the Board of Directors. Principle #4 is Autonomy and Independence. Midwest member-owners are the ones in charge of the direction of our cooperative. Principle #5 is Education, Training and Information which we look to provide to the membership. And Principle #7 is Concern for Community. Midwest again partnered with the Perkins County Youth Development Club to provide the meal for the meeting. We appreciate being able to work with another organization that is also focused on investing in our community, as the proceeds that they get from providing meals is reinvested in youth organizations and scholarships.
We had about 300 total people in attendance, including 170 members attending in person with eight more represented by proxy. We also had quite a few members exercise the option of voting and receiving their attendance prize in the office if they were unable to be at the meeting that evening.
We appreciate Jay Sturhahn’s attendance at our meeting. Mr. Sturhahn is a Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Tri-State Generation and Transmission, Inc., Midwest’s primary wholesale power supplier. He gave an update about several programs that Tri-State has been implementing to give members flexibility in their power supply. Tri-State’s Bring Your Own Resource program allows members to build or buy some of their power from an alternative source, such as renewable resources. They are also rolling out a Demand Response program to help coordinate efforts to reduce expensive power purchases during peak usage periods. And they are working on a High Impact Load Tariff to provide a path for large loads such as data centers to come online while minimizing the risks to member systems.
There were three Director positions up for election this year in Districts 3, 6 and 8. Mark McConnell (District 3), Shawn Turner (District 6) and Nick Hanson (District 8) were all reelected to the Board.
At the end of the evening, 43 door prizes were handed out to those in attendance. In addition, we had cash drawings of $2,000, $1,500 and $1,000 from the entire membership, but you had to be present to win. As none of those three names drawn were in attendance, we had one final drawing for $500 from those in attendance and Tim Pore (Elsie) was the winner.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks again for attending our Annual Meeting!
Jayson Bishop
*Midwest Electric is an equal opportunity provider and employer.*