Since SouthEastern adds a few hundred new members each year, it is necessary from time to time to educate new readers to this column on just exactly what a "Cooperative" is and how we differ from the other electricity providers in the area.

There are many definitions for the word "cooperative", but for our context a cooperative, "is a group of consumers who have a mutual ownership interest in providing themselves a service."  SouthEastern, like most cooperatives, is a not-for profit corporation.

For the most part, people form cooperatives to obtain a service or product that is otherwise not available to them on a cost effective basis.

Electric cooperatives, such as SouthEastern,  are a direct result of the dire poverty which existed in the United States in the 1930’s.  At that time less than 10% of the homes in rural America had power.  In an attempt to rectify that situation and at the same time create new jobs in a depression stricken economy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, which provided for the creation of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA).

The original  intent of the R.E.A. was to make loans available to Investor-Owned Utilities (IOUs) for the extension of electric service into rural America, but low interest rates and long-term loans could not entice any IOUs to take on the financial risk of extending service into rural areas, including most of Southern Illinois.

However those rural Americans of the 1930’s, being a hardy breed of individuals, were not quite ready to give up on the idea of getting electricity, and many of them began forming "Cooperatives" for the purpose of obtaining loan funds through the Rural Electrification Administration.  Many of the original cooperative movements were initiated by rural wives who were more willing to risk a $5.00 membership fee than were their husbands.  Five dollars was a lot of money in those days, but rural wives saw a chance to give up a lot of things, including cooking on a wood stove, ironing with a wood or coal heated iron, doing laundry on a scrub board, filling and cleaning kerosene lamps, and using solar or wood heat to warm water in a wash tub.

In addition to other area electric cooperatives, Ameren-CIPS and Illinois Power, which are both Investor-Owned Utilities (IOUs), also provide electric service in Southern Illinois.  For comparison purposes, investor-owned utilities typically serve about 35 customers for each mile of power line they own and have annual revenues of about $63,000 per mile.  Electric cooperatives, on the other hand, typically serve about 6 customers per mile of line, with average annual revenues of approximately $8,000 per mile.

In the United States,  electric cooperatives provide electric service to 11% of the nation’s population, but own and operate some 43% of the nation’s electric distribution lines. 

A key point for new members to remember is the fact that SouthEastern Electric Cooperative is different from the other power suppliers in this area.  We are different because we are locally owned by the members we serve and we are democratically controlled through an elected Board of Trustees.  We exist only  to provide a service, not to make a profit.