Claverack picnic draws on members
Published: July 22, 2009
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Claverack REC board chairman Tom Elliott stands next to former professional football player David Rowe at Saturday’s annual picnic in Wysox also attended by hundreds of folks from Susquehanna County.
Once again, the Claverack Rural Electric Cooperative annual meeting in Wysox on Saturday was the mother of all picnics.
Board chairman Tom Elliott announced at the outset of the business meeting that 1,053 persons had registered which meant they also probably enjoyed a chicken barbecue and all the fixins’ that preceded the meeting.
This year Claverack members were treated to a pep talk from a former Oakland Raiders football player David Rowe, who incidentally was Penn State Coach Joe Paterno’s first player to be drafted by the pros.
Following a successful career in football and broadcasting, Rowe spent 29 years working for an electric cooperative in North Carolina, which he said was twice as big as Claverack, but never got as many people out to an annual meeting.
He shared some football stories, but underscored that what made Cooperatives successful is embodied in the CHAMPS principle.
He proceeded to layout the acronym C for courage, H for heart, A for attitude, M for mind, P for pride and S for sacrifice and said that in order to be successful you just simply need to pay the price to be good.
He noted that 75 years earlier rural electric cooperatives paid the price to give people in the country a quality of life they had not known before.
“And we’re still helping people,” he said.
Claverack CEO and president Bobbie Kilmer gave an annual report and predicted how rural electric cooperative rates are likely to change in the foreseeable future with a slight increase in distribution rates in 2010 but that could jump to increases of 15 to 20 percent in 2011 as utilities’ rate caps expire and the places where Claverack buys its power increases its charges.
She said that one of the cooperative’s greatest concerns is over climate change legislation before the U.S. Congress.
“If climate change is passed it needs to be fair, it needs to be achievable and it needs to be affordable,” and she said she’d like those in attendance to take up concerns with the state’s U.S. senators on the matter.
About two dozen door prizes were awarded during the annual meeting, including persons from Montrose, Friendsville, New Milford and Hop Bottom.
Members heard from Athens High School student Michael Bernett about a youth tour to Washington, D.C.
Alexander Burkett, son of Jeff and Nancy Burkett of Hallstead and a junior at Blue Ridge High School, also participated in the tour back in June along with six others.
Also at the meeting, three members of Claverack’s Board of Directors were reelected and are to serve three-year terms for the cooperative. They are Michael J. Coleman, Zone 5; Thomas J. Elliott, Zone 4; and James E. Luce, Zone 6.
