Big ideas need bold action to take wing. Few dreams in the
1930s seemed more daunting than delivering electricity to far-flung
farmhouses. That is, until common folks with uncommon grit joined together
in communities across the land.
The present moment may be all that
we have, but the past is still always present. Who we are as individuals, as
Virginians, as Americans and as humans is an amalgam of all the deeds and
misdeeds, brilliance and bumbling, great undertakings and failed
enterprises, fantastical ideas and feats and foibles of all those who came
The history of the world is writ large with lots of
adventures and inventions, accomplishments and advances. But no big idea has
taken wing without bold action.
It takes derring-do by daring doers to turn dreams into
reality. In the rural America of the 1930s, only one home in 10 had electric
service. Traditional utilities were just not able to profitably serve such
far-flung regions, with only two or three farmhouses along every mile of
So who but daring doers would be audacious enough to take
on, in the midst of the Great Depression, such a titanic task, one that
would ultimately become among the largest self-help projects in our nation’s
If necessity is indeed the mother of invention, then
audacity must surely be its father.
And who but daring doers would then go door to door in
nearly 1,000 communities across the country, asking their neighbors to
contribute seed money and signatures to form a new kind of cooperative, one
designed to deliver electricity to rural homes and businesses?
The Book of Proverbs tells us that “without a vision, the
people perish.” Without persistent care, though, visions perish too.
So who but daring doers would persist in their vision to
spread electric service across the land and, despite the scarcity of
resources during World War II, have pretty much hooked up Rural America by
All of which is why the story of electric cooperatives is
more about people than about poles, more about building communities than
about building bottom lines. Each local electric cooperative bears testament
to the power of neighbors joining together to attempt — and achieve — great
And achieve great things they did.
By the 1950s, as urban Americans were expressing wonder
over television and air conditioning, rural Americans were expressing thanks
over light itself, as millions of incandescent candles pierced the darkness
from the edges of Washington State to the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
As rural residents pulled the cord on the humble bulb
hanging overhead in thousands of farm kitchens, they brought to life a new
era. The centuries-old regimen of hauling water from creeks and ponds,
building wood fires, and calibrating farm and family life around the rising
and setting of the sun gave way to electrical and electronic marvels that
would allow our farms to feed the world, and our citizens to spread out
across the land, to enjoy in every dusty crossroads community the same
comforts formerly reserved for city dwellers in Richmond and Norfolk and
The federal government provided a helping hand, too, in
the form of loans and technical support. The electrification of rural
America was then, and remains today, one of the greatest public-private
partnerships in our nation’s history.
The past still resonates today in your cooperative’s
commitment to the communities it serves. You and your neighbors own the
cooperative. So prompt service and community spirit aren’t part of a
business plan; they’re part of being a good neighbor.
Another part of being a good neighbor is visiting across
the fence on a regular basis. Through the pages of Cooperative Living
magazine, Virginia’s 12 cooperatives have been keeping their members
informed since 1946. This magazine is a living reminder of the commitment
made, in a very different world, by common folks with uncommon grit, who saw
an opportunity to improve their lives and their community, and worked
together with their neighbors to make it happen.
So every time we flip a light switch, push a dryer button,
adjust a thermostat, turn on the oven, log on to a computer, or sit down and
watch TV, the past is present with us. Big ideas and bold action by daring
doers three generations ago still reside with us today.