Currents Feb. 2018

Suwannee Valley

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currents February 2018

Planning for success PART 2 - A LOOK AT SVEC’S CONSTRUCTION PLAN

SVEC is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

11340 100th Street • Live Oak, FL 32060

facebook.com/sveccoop

@SVEC_COOP_FL

CEO’S COR NER

2018-2020

CONSTRUCTION

WORK PLAN

A lasting relationship Michael S. McWaters Executive V.P./CEO

This is a time of year when we’re reminded to appreciate the people in our lives who are most important to us.

Some will do it with a valentine, others with a box of chocolates, or they might simply let someone know they’re thinking of them.

At Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative, we’re always thinking about our members. When we’re repairing a section of line after a storm, answering your questions over the phone, or planning ways to improve the reliability of our system, it’s you, our member-owners who are on our minds.

Our relationship with our members has lasted more than 80 years, and it’s one we look forward to continuing for years to come.

Whether it’s between members and their cooperative or between two people, building a strong long-lasting relationship takes work and dedication. That’s why, this month, we spoke to two of our retirees and their wives, whose marriages have stood the test of time.

Jimmy and Bonnie Bass have been married for 52 years.

Aaron and Barbara Tucker have been married for 50. All four know better than most what it takes to make a marriage last through the good times and challenging times.

I think I can speak for everyone at SVEC when I say we’re inspired by their commitment to one another and their children. We can all learn something from the stories they share with us in this newsletter. Here at the cooperative, I know we’ll continue to strive every day to build a stronger relationship with our members. 

New Construction $6,604,308

Line Relocations $3,248,179

Pole Replacements $5,807,997

Misc. Replacements & Additions $1,153,298

System Improvements $3,252,438

Conductor Replacements $462,881

Careful planning is important for the success of any venture, especially for electric cooperatives like SVEC. The cooperative’s decisions and actions can have longterm effects on quality of service, so SVEC plans carefully to guide the co-op’s efforts to provide safe, affordable and reliable electricity:

MORE ON THE CONSTRUCTION WORK PLAN

• Safety Improvement Plan — Emphasizes existing practices and introduces new ones for preventing accidents and injuries.

• Emergency Response Plan — Establishes procedures for keeping the co-op running and restoring power after major storms.

• Financial Manage Plan — Ensures compliance with lender requirements and responsible stewardship of the funds our member-owners entrust to us.

• Construction Work Plan — Identifies a three-year cycle of projects to enhance the reliability and efficiency of SVEC’s electric distribution system.

While completing its last two construction work plans, SVEC focused on a variety of projects to increase the capacity and reliability of the cooperative’s electric distribution system.

Two new substations and the installment of equipment that enables the system to operate at higher voltages were critical additions.

The value of the investment was clear, allowing SVEC to weather last month’s severe cold and to meet an all-time high demand for electricity.

Electricity usage on SVEC’s system reached 139 megawatts at 6:45 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 19, as members awoke to temperatures as low as 21 degrees. The system peak on Thursday, Jan. 18, was 137 megawatts. Before that, SVEC’s all-time peak was 136 megawatts in January of 2015.

Continued on Page 4, see PLANNING FOR SUCCESS

Aaron and Barbara Tucker have been married for 50 years. They have one daughter, Amy.

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ebruary is a time for all of us to let others know just how much they mean to us. This year, SVEC celebrates some of our retirees who know what it takes to build strong long-lasting relationships.

AARON & BARBARA, MARRIED 50 YEARS

Aaron Tucker didn’t think much of his trips to the local Winn-Dixie. Born and raised on the family farm in the Suwannee Valley, he was used to helping out with the chores of purchasing supplies and bringing groceries home.

His soon-to-be wife, Barbara, had just graduated high school in 1963 and taken a job as a cashier at the store. She remembers seeing Aaron walk in and asking her co-worker who he was.

As he perused the back of the store, Aaron happened to look down the aisle and caught sight of Barbara. “That was the first time I remember seeing her. I just accidentally looked up and saw this beautiful girl at the cash register,” he says. “She’s been in my eye ever since.”

Barbara remembers dating being simpler in those days. They went to parties at their friends’ houses and attended church together.

In 1967, four years after they first met at WinnDixie, they were married at her father’s house in Live Oak. For the first few years of their marriage, Aaron continued to work on the farm, but it soon became clear that farm work alone

wouldn’t support them. The business had changed with the improvement of technology, requiring greater production to stay profitable for those farmers with the means to invest.

Barbara had worked in the SVEC office from 1969 to 1971, so the cooperative seemed like a natural fit. In fact, Aaron’s family had been one of the first to get electricity in the cooperative’s early days. At the age of 5, he remembered his father placing his deposit, even though it would take a couple of years for the electric system to develop enough to run power lines to their home.

LOVE AND LAUGHTER

The birth of their daughter, Amy, in 1972 was a turning point for the Tuckers. Though providing for their young child was a challenge, it also helped them to focus on what would become a central pillar of their marriage: a shared goal.

“You need a goal and the ability to work together to accomplish it,” says Barbara. “I don’t care how good things are for you; there are going to be obstacles that make life hard.

You just have to work together and depend on each other.”

After their daughter was born, Barbara

stayed home to raise her while Aaron began his new career with the cooperative. He started out on the right-of-way crew before moving up to construction. He eventually found his way to engineering, where he spent the remainder of his career.

But as much as he loved his work at SVEC, Aaron never forgot why he was there. “There’s an amount of sacrifice each of us has to make in a marriage; everything has to work together,” he says. “I think the main thing is to understand that your family is what you’re living for and what you’re there to do.”

With 50 years of marriage now behind them, both Aaron and Barbara agree that the two things that have carried their marriage are faith in prayer and the ability to laugh.

“You’ve got to be able to laugh a lot. That’ll save you if you can enjoy things,” says Barbara.

“With Aaron, there’s always a funny memory.

But I’ve also always known when something comes up that we can depend on each other.”

One of Aaron’s favorite memories of their relationship has lasted even longer than their marriage. When they were still dating, Aaron was driving through an intersection when Barbara ran a red light and barely missed his truck.

Jimmy and Bonnie Bass have been married for 52 years.

e c i f i r c a S & e c Servi While Barbara still strongly recommends that he forget that story, Aaron sees it a little differently. After all, more than 50 years later he still thinks of her every time he drives past that spot.

JIMMY & BONNIE, MARRIED 52 YEARS

It was a family connection that first brought Jimmy and Bonnie Bass together. When they were both teenagers, her aunt, who was married to Jimmy’s uncle, introduced them.

Bonnie’s aunt turned out to have a knack for matchmaking. The two hit it off immediately and were married in less than a year. In retrospect, Bonnie can understand why her mother was surprised at how quickly their relationship progressed, but at the time she remembers the decision to get married feeling perfectly natural.

“It seemed very normal, but I guess whatever happens to young people seems normal to them,” she says. “My mother thought we needed more time, but Jimmy and I knew we loved each other.”

Both dating and the responsibilities people had at a young age were different then, Bonnie says. She doesn’t recall going many places while she and Jimmy dated. They would spend time together in the company of their families.

And with less pressure to attend college, the responsibilities of daily life set in as soon as they had graduated high school.

“We had led very responsible lives, so it just seemed a natural thing for us to go into a marriage,” Bonnie says. “I had asked God to bring somebody into my life who was pleasing to Him, and I just felt like Jimmy was the one.

And he felt the same about me.”

READY TO SERVE

Jimmy and Bonnie married in 1965 at her home church of Rocky Sink Baptist in Live Oak. The young couple didn’t have long before their marriage faced its first major challenge. Just four months after their wedding, Jimmy was drafted into the Marine Corps as the U.S. military increased its presence in Vietnam.

Jimmy served for nearly three years, stationed for most of that time in North Carolina before being sent to the Mediterranean. While the separation was a challenge for the new marriage, he believes it only made their relationship stronger.

Jimmy returned home in 1968 and just a week later took a job at SVEC. For the rest of their marriage, the only time the couple spent apart would be when he left to work for the cooperative.

Like Aaron Tucker, Jimmy started out on the right-of-way crew before working several years in construction. He then spent the rest of his SVEC career in various supervisory roles, eventually taking a position as supervisor of construction, where he would serve until his retirement.

During those 40 years, Jimmy and Bonnie raised three kids. Money was always a challenge, especially during the nearly 20 years when Bonnie stayed at home with their children. It wasn’t until 1985 that she was able to return to work as a teacher.

Neither one of them ever doubted that their sacrifices were worth it, sharing a steadfast dedication to living as good examples for their kids.

“We denied a lot of things that we would like to have done in order to be around to attend church services and to give of ourselves,” Bonnie says. “We wanted them to see us serving in that capacity as best we could.”

Looking back on the 52 years they have spent together, Jimmy and Bonnie believe it was their willingness to put their children and God ahead of themselves that has served their marriage well over so many years.

“There were always challenges, but they paid great dividends with our family,” she says.

“We definitely feel like serving the Lord has been the secret because He has blessed us way beyond measure.” 

PLANNING FOR SUCCESS, continued from page 1

Save the date Cornhole tournament SVEC will host a cornhole tournament to benefit United Way of Suwannee County on Saturday, April 14, at SVEC’s office in Live Oak. Find registration information for the event at suwanneecornhole.com.

Annual meeting The SVEC annual meeting is Saturday, April 28, at the Suwannee County Coliseum. Make sure you are there to enjoy bingo and win door prizes!

SVEC employees celebrate the completion of the project to increase the system’s voltage from 7,200 to 14,400 in July 2017.

SVEC’s new 2018-20 Construction Work Plan calls for additional system improvements, including upgraded service wires for increased capacity, automatic switching equipment for reducing the numbers of members affected by some sustained outages, and equipment to stabilize voltage for large commercial and industrial consumers.

The new Construction Work Plan also calls for relocating 17 miles of key power lines that have

the potential to perform more reliably if moved from wooded areas to roadsides. SVEC also plans to replace 79 miles of old copper conductor and 4,225 deteriorating power poles, most of which were installed in the ’60s and ’70s.

Finally, the plan provides for the installation of new lines, transformers, meters and other equipment needed to service a forecasted 1,117 new member accounts. 

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Have you been saving Box Tops for Education without a plan on where to send them?

SVEC is here to help. Just drop off your stash at SVEC or mail them to our office. We will make sure they are delivered to local school districts.

Mail: P.O. Box 160 Live Oak, FL 32064

Drop-off: 11340 100th St., Live Oak, Florida