Building on the tradition
of service to electric co-ops

Mississippi’s electric power association family said goodbye last month to a long-time advocate of electric cooperatives and their members. Hobson Waits, who retired in January after serving the Electric Power Associations of Mississippi for some 37 years, was an effective and respected leader in rural electrification on the state and national levels.

For the 23 years he served as CEO of the Electric Power Associations of Mississippi, Hobson used this column to help electric power association members understand the value of consumer-owned electric cooperatives in Mississippi and the advantages enjoyed by their members. Hobson believes deeply in electric power associations’ primary objective: to deliver reliable, affordable electric service to every home, farm, business and industry within their service areas.

Filling his shoes will be no easy task, but I’m eager for the challenge. I feel fortunate to have been selected to lead the Electric Power Associations of Mississippi forward into a new century of service. And I’m grateful for the solid foundation Hobson laid for this organization, including its long tradition of service, responsiveness and effectiveness.

With the obvious exception of Today in Mississippi, much of what we do here at the Electric Power Associations of Mississippi is invisible to you, the members of Mississippi’s 26 electric power associations. Yet you benefit, albeit indirectly, from everything we do.

Fundamental to the cooperative form of electric utility is working cooperatively. In the early 1940s, when rural electrification was in its early stages in Mississippi, managers of newly created electric power associations quickly realized the most efficient way to achieve certain goals was to share resources and to work together to solve common problems. Thus, they created a statewide membership organization, the Electric Power Associations of Mississippi.

This organization was designed in part to help control the costs associated with distributing affordable electricity throughout rural Mississippi. Building and maintaining power lines in sparsely populated rural areas is an expensive proposition; literally thousands of miles of power line are needed to reach all consumers.

From the beginning, the Electric Power Associations of Mississippi proved valuable in helping electric power associations operate more efficiently by offering them services such as insurance, worker safety training and governmental relations. Electric power association members benefited by paying less for their electricity.

Through the years, services provided by the Electric Power Associations of Mississippi expanded to meet growing needs, including economic and community development, emergency work coordination and communications.

But our original mission remains essentially unchanged: to safeguard the interests of every member receiving electricity from an electric power association. Members still benefit by paying less for electricity than they would if electric power associations weren’t working cooperatively to control operating costs.

I’m proud to be a part of this effort and I’m excited about the possibilities ahead. My predecessor took great pride in his role as lead advocate for Mississippi’s rural electric consumers. I plan to uphold his high standard of service for the benefit of all our consumers.

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