The Enlightener

Feb 2004

Scholarships Available from Blue Ridge Electric

As part of our commitment to supporting local communities, Blue Ridge Electric offers various scholarship and youth leadership opportunities which are now open for applications.
Scholarships

Blue Ridge Electric will award $15,600 in scholarships to high school seniors and adults within the cooperative’s service territory who are seeking a higher education. Scholarships are awarded based on a combination of financial need, community activity, school performance and activities, and personal interviews.

Scholarships available are:

4-Year Degrees

For high school seniors seeking a bachelor’s degree, $10,000 is available in the form of five $2,000 Goodman-Hurt Scholarships. Students from Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe, Alleghany, and Wilkes counties are eligible to apply.

2-Year Degrees

Seven scholarships worth $5,600 are available to anyone living in the cooperative’s service territory seeking a two-year degree. Five $800 Goodman-Hurt technical/vocational scholarships are available to students in Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe, Alleghany, and Wilkes counties.

Suddreth and Cockerham Memorial Scholarships

For those seeking two-year degrees, an additional $800 Tom Cockerham Scholarship is available for Ashe County residents and an $800 Charles Suddreth Scholarship is available to Caldwell County residents.

How to Apply

Applications are available from high school guidance counselors, your local community college, or at www.BlueRidgeEMC.com.

The deadline for all scholarship applications is March 31, 2004.

Youth Tour

Each June, Blue Ridge Electric awards up to four rising seniors from its service area with an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., where they join other students from across the nation for a fun learning experience. The weeklong trip begins June 14 and combines visiting historic sights, learning about rural electrification, meeting North Carolina elected officials and witnessing our government in action. Youth Tour winners are also eligible to apply for several college scholarships.

Individual short essays and interviews determine Youth Tour winners. Applications are available on-line at www.BlueRidgeEMC.com, or through school guidance counselors. All applications must be submitted by March 15, 2004.

Broyhill Leadership Conference

Blue Ridge Electric annually sponsors up to seven students from its service area to attend the highly acclaimed Broyhill Leadership Conference at Belmont Abby College.

The five-day conference is available to any student in grade 10 through 12 nominated by their guidance counselor. Young people from across the nation will participate in the Broyhill Leadership Conference, which is designed to lead students to an understanding and usage of goal setting, motivational techniques, group dynamics, communication, and cooperation.

Applications are available through high school guidance counselors who will make the selection of the 2004 Broyhill Leadership Conference winners.

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Load Management Credits Change

Load management credits are changing to $1.50 per month for water heaters and $3.50 for air conditioners during the months of June through September. This becomes effective on bills rendered after February 5, 2004. Please see the CEO Perspective column below for more details.

Members Only News
-For Members of Blue Ridge Electric

Board to Appoint Nominating Committee

At their February board meeting, the Board of Directors will appoint a Nominating Committee consisting of 12 members who will select candidates to fill four available board seats this year. Nominating Committee members may not be employees, agents, officers, directors, close relatives, or known candidates to become directors. The committee should have adequate representation reflecting the number of directors from each district, except one member representing the membership-at-large who must be of the minority membership and may be a resident of any district.

The committee will meet March 25 to develop the slate of board candidates for available seats. A list of the candidates will be posted in each Blue Ridge Electric office the week after the March 25 meeting of the Board of Directors.

Additionally, nominations by petition must be made at least 60 days prior to the June 12 Annual Membership Meeting. Petitions must be signed by 15 or more members, with each signing his or her name as it appears on their electric service bill. Deadline for petitions is Monday, April 12. Petitions will be posted in each Blue Ridge Electric office beside the list of nominees from Nominating Committee.

Information about board nominees will be mailed during late May to every Blue Ridge Electric member.

The following are qualifications to serve as a director of Blue Ridge Electric:

Must be receiving electric service from Blue Ridge Electric at their primary residence
Must not be a close relative of an incumbent director or of an employee of the cooperative
Their membership must not have been suspended at any time during the 12 months preceding the annual meeting
Must be at least 18 years old
Must not be employed by or in a position to financially gain from a competing enterprise of the cooperative or its subsidiary, or a business selling electric energy or supplies to the cooperative.
The Director-at-Large seat is reserved to represent the minority membership of the cooperative. Only African American, Native American, Asian, or Hispanic members are eligible for this seat.

In addition, no former employee is eligible to serve on the board until six years following the date of their last employment with the cooperative.

Photo_CEO Johnson The Perspective

An Editorial by Chief Executive Officer Doug Johnson
Effects of Load Control

As a result of deregulation of the wholesale power market and the effects it has had on the way electric energy is priced, adjustments are being made in the way we operate our load management system and we’ve reduced the monthly credit amount paid to members for load management.

Load management – or load control – systems help electric utilities control power usage during certain times in order to reduce loads on the power distribution system and can lessen the need to purchase wholesale power during expensive peak periods.

In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, we could avoid high “on peak” demand charges by utilizing load control. During these years, Blue Ridge Electric typically initiated load control two to six periods per month, two to four hours at a time. In the past few years, we haven’t utilized load control as frequently due to changes in the wholesale power market.

As the wholesale power market changed, however, power pricing has changed. Wholesale pricing of electricity is now driven by energy usage (kWh) rather than kilowatt (kW) demand.

The result of this change is savings from load management have substantially decreased. There is, however, the opportunity for us to create some savings so we’ll continue offering a reduced credit to members with load management systems in their homes. This year, we project to pay $390,000 in load management credits to members. By operating load management when necessary, we hope to save at least this much in the price we pay for electricity in 2004.

While load management can be beneficial, we understand it can also be disruptive. That’s why we’ve implemented a guideline of limiting load control to only those times when wholesale energy prices are significantly higher than our average wholesale cost. Our new guidelines will reduce the number of days and the hours of control.

I hope this explains our reasoning behind the new load management credit levels and how we’ll utilize the system under these new market conditions. Our first and foremost commitment is to serving you, our member-owners, with reliable power at the best price possible. Load management helps us operate your cooperative more efficiently for you, the member-owners.

Bylaws Updated

The Board of Directors has approved updates to the bylaws of Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation. The changes include an adjustment in the bylaw addressing compensation of directors to reflect the board of director’s approval to discontinue the cooperative’s health benefits coverage of board members. References in the bylaw to directors’ health benefits was removed and the portion of the bylaw that changed appears below:

Article 1, Section 3.10. Compensation, Expenses, Indemnification. For their services as such, directors shall receive such compensation as is fixed by the Cooperative’s established policies covering such.

For a complete listing of the bylaws, please contact your local cooperative office or visit www.BlueRidgeEMC.com.

Dependent Upon Life Support?

In addition to letting your local emergency management personnel know if you depend upon life support equipment so they can assist you in an emergency, you should also contact your electric cooperative if you are dependent upon electrically powered life support equipment.

Blue Ridge Electric is committed to the highest level of power reliability; however, severe storms, maintenance work, or other causes can lead to power interruptions.

If you depend upon electrically powered life support equipment, please let us know so we can note this on your account. This will help ensure we meet your needs.

Published monthly by Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation for its 52,099 member-owners.