When I was a boy, we’d go to the Harris Teeter in Rock Hill for groceries, where I got to select one of the golden-spined storybooks published by Little Golden Books, strategically placed at the checkout. My mom told me I could spend 50 cents on a toy, candy or a book. I always opted for a book and looked for ones about individuals overcoming obstacles, even if it was a fictional character.
In the elementary school library, I went straight to the 92-Bs, the Dewey Decimal code for biographies. I still love biographies because learning how people respond to challenges provides unique insight into the past and a glimpse of the future.
That’s what I hope came through over the last year as I’ve used this column to share some of my favorite stories about cooperative personalities.
Our series started last April with the story of Mr. Henry McNeill, who told me about how hard his mother and father toiled without electricity and how his neighbors offered their mules to help the newly formed Horry Electric Cooperative install rural Spring Branch’s first power lines. In that same column, we highlighted Richland County educator Barbara Weston. She was tired of watching the board members of Tri-County Electric look out only for their own interests, so she organized the grassroots movement that deposed and replaced them.
The next month, we learned of the late Gov. John West’s mission to alleviate the burdens of poverty in South Carolina. He partnered with co-ops to attach modular bathrooms to rural homes in the 1970s, the effort labeled as John’s Johns. That spirit still exists in co-op initiatives like Pay It Forward, which rewards college students for finding innovative solutions to rural challenges.
In another column, we explored the resistance cooperatives faced from investor-owned utilities as they sought to bring electricity to rural South Carolina for the first time. For-profit utilities went so far as to claim territory they’d previously refused to serve with “spite lines.” Similarly, telecommunications companies recently have attempted to prevent cooperatives from bringing broadband service to unserved communities.
As I relayed last summer, a lone voice singing an aria in the lobby of the State House brought closure to a victorious co-op tale. Legislation passed 35 years ago prevented corporate takeovers of distribution cooperatives unless there was full transparency and a supermajority vote of the cooperative’s membership. The singer was among hundreds of co-op members who packed the State House to make sure legislators protected their right to self-governance.
I especially enjoyed telling you about individuals who served their communities. Sen. Don Holland spent his youth as a translator in post-war Japan and then decades as an attorney in Kershaw County, advocating for fairness and justice. Similarly, Jordan Brown says his Washington Youth Tour experience in 2022 inspired him to implement a voter registration drive at Fort Mill High School last year.
Last month, we saw how leaders in Washington are moved by the cooperative story. Both Sen. Strom Thurmond and Rep. James Clyburn were tired of seeing their people not have fair economic opportunities. They also recognized that those interests aligned with the cooperative mission.
Local cooperative members have lived these stories. I’m just lucky to have gotten to listen to them.
History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it does rhyme. The challenges cooperative members will face in the coming months and years may feel new and overwhelming. But as we reflect on stories from our past, the characters, the conflicts, and even the resolutions are familiar.
These stories remind us of the power of cooperatives to transform their communities and make life better for their members. They show that with collective purpose and action, even the little guys at the end of the power line can make a difference. As long as there are electric cooperatives, people in rural communities will have something that is special. Something that is worth fighting for. Something that is theirs.
Mike Couick is president and CEO of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Inc., the statewide association of not-for-profit electric cooperatives.