Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century

Energy Co-op Sets Up Scholarship Endowment

An organization that generates the juice that keeps lights burning brightly in 380,000 homes and businesses in south and central Alabama and northwest Florida has established an endowment that will provide scholarships to students majoring in agriculture at Auburn University.

What would prompt a company like Alabama Electric Cooperative, whose main mission is generating and transmitting wholesale power to its members, to make such a move?

Concerns about the precarious future facing farming, says AEC’s Horace Horn.

“We are committed to ensuring a strong economy and improving the quality of life in the communities that we serve, and the continued existence of family farms is crucial to those goals,” says Horn, vice president of government and economic affairs for the Andalusia-based co-op.

“We want to make sure agriculture has a long-time presence in our service area,” he says. “Helping give young people the opportunity to pursue a degree in agriculture is a very real way we can do that.”

To be eligible for one of the scholarships, a student must live in a home that receives electric service from one of AEC’s 20 distribution members. In Alabama, those members include the cities of Andalusia, Brundidge, Elba and Opp, along with Baldwin EMC, Central Alabama, Clarke-Washington EMC, Coosa Valley, Covington, Dixie, Pea River, Pioneer, South Alabama, Southern Pine, Tallapoosa River and Wiregrass electric cooperatives.

Florida members include CHELCO, Escambia River, Gulf Coast and West Florida electric co-ops.

What is especially interesting about this endowment is that, as set up at AU, it is called, not the AEC, but the PowerSouth Energy Cooperative Endowment for Scholarship in the College of Agriculture.

That’s because, on Jan. 1, 2008, the 66-year-old, $1.5-billion Alabama Electric Co-op became PowerSouth Energy.

“Operating in Florida as we do, having Alabama in the name didn’t serve us well down there, especially in our efforts to recruit industry,” Horn says. “The new name better represents the geographic diversity of our membership, and it will enhance our position as a leader in economic development.”

Clay Campbell, an AEC director and immediate past chairman of the organization’s board, says the board chose PowerSouth Energy “because it implies strength, integrity and the cooperative nature of our business.”

AEC President and CEO Gary Smith says the name change will not bring about any structure or staff changes and that the consumers served by AEC member cooperatives can continue to count on a reliable, affordable and environmentally sound supply of energy.