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Power Outage Reporting
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800-752-0025
SERVING THE SUWANNEE VALLEY OWNED BY THOSE WE SERVE
(8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. • Monday - Friday, Lobby Hours)
SVEC is an equal opportunity provider and employer. 11340 100th Street • Live Oak, FL 32060
Michael S. McWaters Executive V.P./CEO
This has been a big year for Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative. We weathered the impact of Hurricane Irma, we reached an incredible safety milestone of three years without a lost-time injury, and our employees raised more than $11,000 for the United Way.
For me, it’s hard to look at those accomplishments and not see the pillars of this cooperative: dedication to serving our members, a commitment to the safety of our employees, and a willingness to help our community. It seems like the perfect way to mark SVEC’s 80th anniversary.
We’ve talked a lot about the history of the cooperative this year. You’ve heard how SVEC first brought electricity to our region from some of the people who were there, and you’ve learned how our system has grown and developed.
But as we close out this anniversary year, we wanted to take one last look at the dawn of electricity in this area through our members’ eyes. Many of us have never known life without the regular convenience of electric power, so I hope you’ll take some time to read about the impact its arrival had on people living in the Suwannee Valley in the cooperative’s early days.
And, of course, I want to take this opportunity to wish all of our members a merry Christmas and happy New Year from all of us here at SVEC. As proud as I am to celebrate this cooperative’s rich history, I’m even more excited at the bright future ahead of us. We look forward to lighting the way in 2018 and serving another 80 years in this wonderful community.
The holiday season can be a busy time of year, with some people overwhelmed by events with family and friends, shopping, and end-of-year workloads. But even with packed schedules, it’s also a time when people find ways to give back to their community.
The same is true for Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative, not just because giving is the right thing to do, but also because it’s one of our core cooperative values.
“SVEC’s dedication to great service doesn’t stop where the power lines end,” says SVEC Director of Communications Jon Little. “Our members and our employees live in this community, so we want to do our part to help make it an even better place to live.”
This Christmas, SVEC has been as busy as ever, taking part in several of our area’s most important holiday traditions and seeking new opportunities for our employees to help others who are in need.
Employees come together with their individual talents each year to build and decorate a float for community Christmas parades. This year, SVEC won the Suwannee County Chamber’s Grand Marshall Award for best float for the third year in a
row. Cooperative employees also helped hang the Christmas Festival banner for the Town of Branford and worked a little Christmas magic to make sure all of Live Oak’s Christmas lights went up overnight.
In addition, the cooperative supports and participates in many other community events. SVEC loaned a generator to the Suwannee County Chamber of Commerce for Christmas on the Square and is a sponsor of Altrusa International’s Christmas Tour of Homes, the Festival of Lights in White Springs, and Santa’s appearance at Breakfast with Santa, which benefits the United Way of Suwannee Valley. Employees also raised money to pay for Christmas gifts for less fortunate children through Love INC.
The cooperative takes part in all of these activities because we believe in the importance of our core values and being a real contributor to our community. We are proud to live out these principles and to have the privilege of spreading the joy of Christmas to our neighbors.
Growing up in White Springs, Francis Dees remembers enjoying iced tea just once a week. Many people in the town didn’t have electricity for refrigeration, so each Sunday, the local general store would get 100-pound blocks of ice.
“You could buy 25 pounds of ice for 25 cents, but the thing about it was when you got home, it was probably half-melted,” he says. “So usually on a Sunday everybody would have a block of ice and they’d have iced tea, but you couldn’t have it all during the week.”
hard to come by,” says Bill Hart, an SVEC board member since 1989.
However reluctant some residents may have been to sign up, Christine Evans-Rieg couldn’t wait for her family’s electric service. As a girl of about 10, she remembers the excitement of seeing cooperative trucks arriving to set electric poles.
“I guess we thought we were going to have electricity right away,” she says. “There were five of us going to school and doing our homework by lamplight. When we first got the electricity in our house and had light bulbs that were 40 watts, we could hardly believe how bright it was.”
Moments like the one Evans-Rieg remembers would have been a long time coming for rural areas if not for the rise of cooperatives in the late ’30s and early ’40s. In fact, large cities had already begun building out electric systems decades earlier.
The situation was the same for many families throughout the Suwannee Valley in the 1940s. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had signed the Rural Electrification Act into law in 1936, and by December 1937, the cooperative had rounded up enough members to sign its articles of incorporation.
But still, many local residents weren’t convinced of the need for electricity.
“It may seem surprising that some people would not put up the money for membership, but it cost $5 to become a member, and back then that was
The first central station electric system was built by Thomas Edison in lower Manhattan in 1882. While electric power spread to many cities soon after, extending lines to rural areas with less dense populations wasn’t considered cost-effective for major utilities.
“If you lived along a big highway, if you lived in Mayo or Branford, they would drop a line to you,” Hart says. “But if you were over a certain distance away, they wouldn’t bother with you because it was too expensive.”
During that period, Evans-Rieg remembers the everyday inconveniences common on a farm without electricity. Washing clothes meant a time-consuming process during which her mother had to boil water, use a rub board to clean them, and hang them on a line to dry.
Her own chores were a hassle, too, particularly pumping water for baths, as well as pumping water for the cows, hogs and chickens her family kept. Even keeping the stove on was sometimes dependent on the weather.
“We had a wood stove first, and then we got a little kerosene stove, but we had to be careful of the wind blowing through the windows or it would blow the burner out,” she says.
Dees recalls the lengths his family and their neighbors would go to avoid wasting food before electric refrigeration. In particular, he remembers working with his father to carry a load of beef to the local canning plant, where they could preserve the entire thing for a penny a can. The Dees family ate a lot of stewed beef that year.
“If you couldn’t do that when you butchered hogs or cattle, people would go around to the neighbors and share the extras because you couldn’t keep it,” he says.
tricts to its service area, requiring two more board members to represent them. In 1950, 10 years after SVEC had energized its first lines, the cooperative provided electric service to more than 2,900 rural farms and homes.
Evans-Rieg’s home was among those. After she had grown accustomed to the brilliance of electric light, the first electric appliance she remembers her family getting was a washing machine. It even came equipped with a ringer that helped them get clothes from the wash to the line faster.
Next came the electric stove, a convenience her mother in particular wished she could have had earlier while raising her family, and an electric refrigerator to replace the older kerosene model.
“We didn’t have to worry about the wind blowing or anything,” Evans-Rieg says. “It was just amazing to us and mind-boggling to think we could have all these luxuries because we were just poor farmers.”
After the novelty of electric power had worn off, SVEC continued to play an important role in her family’s life. Her parents rarely missed an oppor-
Cakes lined up in a cake competition during an annual meeting. Electric ovens and mixers were a luxury during the introduction of electric power.
cake, and my mom said that’s because she had the electric mixer,” Evans-Rieg says. “So in time we had to go get an electric mixer, too.”
Today, as SVEC celebrates its 80th anniversary, electricity no longer inspires the same kind of awe in most members that it once did. But Dees and Evans-Rieg still believe the cooperative is every bit as important as it was in those early days.
“ ” That first time we turned on the light to read, it just brightened up the page and made the whole house brighter. And I guess our outlook on life was much brighter, too.
– Christine Evans-Rieg, SVEC member
All that changed after SVEC started running electric lines throughout the Suwannee Valley. Once people began seeing the benefits of electric power from their neighbors, even those who were skeptical signed up.
In 1940, SVEC served just 69 members. By 1947, the cooperative had added two additional dis-
tunity to see friends and neighbors at the annual meeting. Along the way, they even won an electric bun warmer, which Evans-Rieg still uses, and engaged in some friendly rivalry with the neighbor who won an electric mixer.
“That neighbor always won the prizes for best
Dees currently lives with his wife, Anne, on her uncle’s property, which first got electric power in 1943. Since they moved there in 1962, he has seen tremendous improvements in the cooperative’s reliability and outage responses.
“When we first moved out here, lines just ran wherever, usually following dirt roads,” he says. “If a good strong thunderstorm came along, we’d probably go without electricity for a day or two.”
Dees credits much of that improvement to better tree-trimming, having seen limbs growing over and around power lines through the years in a way that is less common today. Even when service is interrupted, Evans-Rieg sees it more as an opportunity to be reminded of all the modern conveniences she enjoys today than a frustration.
“Everything is electric: the air conditioning, the heating. It would be hard to live without it now,” she says. “When the power goes out, it makes us appreciate all that we have.”
Even more important than the simple conveniences electricity provided is the way it impacted her quality of life. With less time dedicated to the task of simply getting by, families had more time to spend with each other, to learn, and to plan for the future.
“That first time we turned on the light to read, it just brightened up the page and made the whole house brighter,” Evans-Rieg says. “And I guess our outlook on life was much brighter, too.”
Scams are an ongoing threat — and get more sophisticated every day. SVEC wants to help protect you by making you aware of some common ones:
You receive a call from someone telling you that your power will be cut off that day (sometimes within the hour) if you don’t pay now. SVEC will never ask members who have delinquent accounts to pay immediately “or else.” Members with delinquent accounts will receive notices in the mail well in advance — never just a single notification right before disconnection.
The caller asks for personal information, like a social security number. SVEC never calls members asking for this type of information.
They ask you to pay with a prepaid debit card or your personal bank card over the phone. SVEC will never call and demand payment over the phone, nor will they ask for prepaid debit cards.
Scammers call or show up on your doorstep and offer a service on behalf of SVEC or ask for personal information or payment. SVEC employees will never call or come to your home to promote a service or ask for personal information or payment. Also, keep in mind that all SVEC employees carry a cooperative-issued photo ID card.
Be aware that some scammers can make an SVEC number appear on your caller ID; don’t let that fool you.
If you suspect a scammer is on the phone or at your door, call SVEC’s Member Service Department at 800-447-4509.
For the 40th consecutive year, SVEC is sponsoring a tour of Tallahassee for high school juniors. While in Tallahassee, the students will be introduced to the cooperative business model and Florida’s legislative process. Possible activities include a tour of the state Capitol, participation in a mock bill debate on the floor of the Senate or House of Representatives, and visits to the governor’s mansion and the Florida Supreme Court.
To be eligible for the tour which takes place Feb. 7-8, the student must be enrolled in the 11th grade of a high school or home-school in SVEC’s service territory and have a grade point average of at least 3.0. The student must also be a dependent of an SVEC member but cannot be a child or grandchild of a current SVEC employee or trustee.
Nine students will be chosen for the tour based on a 250- to 500-word essay they submit titled “Why I want to represent Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative on the Tallahassee Youth Tour.”
More information and a tour application form can be obtained from junior-class guidance counselors or on our website at svec-coop.com/youth-tour.
Employees recently volunteered to landscape the front yard of The ARC of North Florida’s Live Oak residential group home. We are grateful to Nobles Greenhouse & Nursery and Beaver Dump Truck Service for providing us with materials at a reduced cost.
Your Power, Your Plan, Your Choice
Tired of monthly electric bills? MyChoice Prepay makes it easy to keep track of your account balance and pay for energy as you use it. Visit svec-coop.com/mychoice or call 800-447-4509 to sign up today.
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As you decorate your home for the holidays, don’t forget to keep fire safety in mind!
Don’t let your tree get dry; water it daily.
Check your electrical cords, including extension cords, for exposed wires.
Never leave a candle burning out of view.
Don’t overload outlets with decorations.