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Jackson
Energy
A
Better Life
August 1996
Harriet Bowman
provides an especially personal story of how electric cooperatives
improve the quality of life in Kentucky. Last month, 81-year-old
Harriet Bowman of Lee County, in southeastern Kentucky, got
electricity for the first time. She’ll have running water. She’ll
have a refrigerator instead of an ice chest. And, thanks to a
weatherization grant, her house will be warmer this winter.
Helping Harriet
get electricity is just one of the more clearly
human-interest ways that Jackson County Rural Electric Cooperative,
based in McKee, is “trying to address the very foundation
of the needs in this community,” says Doug Leary, president and
general manager of Jackson County Rural Electric Co-op. Having
electricity these days is certainly a basic human need. Another
basic need, especially for the more than 40,000 consumer-members who
receive electricity in the seven-county area served by Jackson
County Rural Electric, is jobs. And the co-op has been
especially active there, too.
Leary says the
co-op and its employees work in a number of ways to serve as
a catalyst in helping promote economic development in the
area. In 1994, Jackson County was designated as part of a rural
economic empowerment zone, and Leary sits on the empowerment zone
board. The designation has meant $20 million for the county,
which is being used to carry out a strategic economic development
plan (which the co-op helped put together) to bring jobs to
the area. The focus of those efforts has been to look to
developing tourism industry to take advantage of the area’s
natural beauty, provide education and community centers, and attract
new businesses to the area. Those efforts are beginning to show
signs of success, with new businesses locating in the Jackson County
industrial park and other area sites.
All of this work
with other people and organizations in the community and at the
state and federal levels, Leary says, is part of carrying out
the co-op’s mission, which is: “To be a consumer driven electric
cooperative, responsive to and consistently excelling at meeting
member needs and services that improve the quality of life.”
Helping bring
electricity to Harriet Bowman, Leary says, “has given a special
meaning to that mission.” Whether it’s allowing Harriet Bowman
to have a refrigerator or being a part of attracting a
business with 100 new jobs, Leary says, “We have the opportunity
of a lifetime to help make use of these different resources
to make a difference in people’s lives.”-Paul
Wesslund |
