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Union University honors Matthew Keen with $10,000 Washington Youth Tour scholarship

JACKSON – Union University is pleased to announce that Matthew Keen of Halls, Tennessee, is the recipient of the school’s first $10,000 Washington Youth Tour Creative Writing Competition scholarship. Keen plans to attend Union University this fall.

“Matthew is an exceptionally bright young man, academically gifted and musically talented,” said Robbie Graves, Assistant Vice-President for Undergraduate Admissions at Union University. “We believe that he will thrive here and are so excited to keep this family’s Union legacy alive.”

Keen, a student from the Forked Deer Electric Cooperative service territory, had the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C. as a part of the 2023 Washington Youth Tour to learn more about leadership, history and public policy.

“Forked Deer Electric is proud and honored to have a local student receive such an award,” said Jeff Newman, general manager of Forked Deer Electric Cooperative. “Mathew is an exceptional student with so much potential. Forked Deer Electric will continue to support our community and encourage others to follow Mathew’s example of what is possible.”

Keen, along with 6,000 other high school students from across the state, have participated in the Electric Cooperative Creative Writing and Scholarship Competition since its start in the 1960s.

“This scholarship means a lot to me as it allows me to attend college at an affordable cost,” said Matthew Keen, scholarship winner. “The Washington Youth Tour was an eye-opening experience that changed the way I view our country. I believe that every American should visit Washington at least once, and the depth that we were allowed to go on with the tour was a big bonus. It truly gave me memories that will last a lifetime.”

The scholarship is part of the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association’s partnership with both Carson Newman and Union University. Union University will also award 24 $4,000 per year scholarships for other delegates who plan to enroll at the school for the fall semester immediately after high school graduation.

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TECA welcomes Amber Weaver as new feature writer and content creator

Amber Weaver

NASHVILLE – The Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association is pleased to announce the addition of Amber Weaver to its communications team as a feature writer and content creator. With a strong background in storytelling and content creation, Amber brings a fresh perspective and a wealth of experience to the association. 

Weaver has years of experience in journalism and writing. She has previously worked for Tennessee Farm Bureau, Journal Communications and RFD-TV, and she has a proven track record of engaging audiences through compelling storytelling. 

“We are excited to welcome Amber to our team,” said Chris Kirk, editor of The Tennessee Magazine. “Her storytelling talent and ability to connect with readers will be tremendous assets to the association and the magazine. Her passion for highlighting the interesting stories of the Volunteer State is a perfect fit with the magazine’s mission of celebrating all that’s great in Tennessee.” 

In this role, Weaver will write feature stories for The Tennessee Magazine and develop multimedia content for the association. 

“I am honored to join the TECA team as a writer for The Tennessee Magazine and the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association,” said Weaver. “Writing and the rural way of life have always been passions of mine, and I am excited to continue working in both of those areas with an organization that has such a great impact on the state I love.” 

Amber holds a bachelor’s degree in agriculture communications from the University of Tennessee at Martin. She and her family live in Dickson County.

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Plateau Electric Cooperative Welcomes Proffitt as New CEO

ONIEDA – Plateau Electric Cooperative recently appointed John Proffitt to lead the utility as its new Chief Executive Officer. Proffitt, who joins PEC from Duke Energy, will officially assume the role on May 15, 2024.

With more than two decades of experience in the electric utility industry, including his most recent role as Director of Area Operations, Proffitt brings a wealth of expertise to his new position.

His proficiency in government oversight, environmental management, and operations, with a particular emphasis on safety, positions him to lead PEC into the future.

Proffitt shared, “I am extremely excited and blessed to partner with the employees and members of Plateau Electrical Cooperative as CEO, and look forward to leading PEC into a bright and thriving future. My family and I are eager to integrate into the community and make eastern Tennessee our home.”

PEC Board Chair Tim Freels stated, “I believe in John’s ability to drive the internal culture at PEC, ensuring that the entire team experiences a strong sense of appreciation and inclusion. I am confident in his ability to fully understand the needs of our members and our community and to train, cultivate, and mentor our staff to meet and exceed those needs.”

Proffitt’s selection as the new CEO of PEC resulted from a nationwide search facilitated by TVPPA. His qualifications, including a BS in Applied Management and an MBA from Franklin University, underscore his suitability for the role.

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Knotts addresses TVA board

NASHVILLE – Today the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors held a public listening session at Lipscomb University in Nashville. Mike Knotts, CEO of the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association, addressed the board during the listening session, and a readout of his comments is below.

Lipscomb University Shinn Center | Nashville, TN | 2:00 p.m. CST

 

Good afternoon. My name is Mike Knotts, and I serve as the CEO of the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association.  I appear here today on behalf of 25 local power companies who collectively serve consumers in six of the seven states TVA calls home. TECA’s members own and operate over $6 billion in distribution assets, and their wholesale power bills comprise over 25% of TVA’s revenues.  

At previous listening sessions, I have encouraged you to focus TVA’s strategic goals on reliability and affordability, and I have also asked you to consider that while TVA’s structure and mission is certainly unique, the cooperative business model provides a closer comparison for TVA than the large investor-owned utilities. That is because the cooperative ownership structure aligns with TVA’s mission.  

Remember that President Roosevelt called for the creation of a government corporation “possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise”? Co-ops are privately owned by their members, but they operate on a not for profit basis – similar to  the TVA Act’s requirement that for electric power to be provided at rates as low as feasible. 

TECA members accomplish this by adhering to the seven cooperative principles – which require accumulated capital remain the common property of the cooperative, and requires members to democratically control the co-op’s activities, much like this Board controls TVA. 

Here in the TVA ecosystem we tend to think of co-ops as distribution utilities, but there are 62 Generation and Transmission cooperatives across America that function much like TVA. These “G&T’s” collectively perform the same functions that TVA’s power program does and could be included as “peer utilities” in TVA’s benchmarking activities. Notably, they should serve as sources of potential new talent for TVA’s team.  

But the 49 distribution cooperatives TVA serves have a lot to offer you as well. 

Today, I would like to encourage you as Board to consider how cooperatives can help you accomplish your goals.  

The path before you is not a simple one. The demands for your attention are great, and the opinions about what decisions you should make next are many. At its core, you are charged with powering everyday life and maintaining the economic vitality of our region.  

And you are being asked to do so with no interruptions and at the speed of light. The margin for error for both TVA and electric co-ops is so slim – milliseconds can mean the difference between light and dark, and indeed life and death. 

We’ve all heard the old adage, “if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.” When it comes to your responsibilities, truer words have never been spoken. That has become more relevant last week as the EPA finalized a number of new rules last week that rely upon unproven technologies based on an unachievable mandate of “regulate to innovate.” 

The highest of ideals cannot trump the realities of physics. The electric grid is carefully and wonderfully made. The complexity of the grid is both its greatest achievement and one its biggest weakness. You can be certain the electric cooperatives will be leading the charge to ensure public policy doesn’t harm the “least of these.” 

As you react to these developments in Washington, D.C., please remember that rates as low as feasible are meaningless if the lights turn off. Reliability AND affordability must be at the top of your priority list.  

And electric co-ops are ready to help you accomplish this, even if the path before us is not simple or easy. 

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Superlatives Aren’t Always Supreme

Breaking news. Red alert. Crisis status. Influencers. Clickbait. Notifications. Do any of these sound familiar to you? If you watch the news, scroll on social media or put your phone down for more than 10 minutes, you are likely to be overwhelmed with messages trying to get your attention.

While the number of organizations and apps that are competing for your time and focus continues to grow, the one thing that remains constant is that there are 86,400 seconds in every day to do anything — sleep, eat, pray, play, work or anything else. But the demand for your attention continues to grow. And how we handle that is a huge challenge.

Those who are trying to be noticed are facing more competition, so they resort to increasingly extreme language to stand out among the crowd. A simple thunderstorm might now elicit a “red alert” weather statement from the local news station, for instance. I can’t help but think about Aesop’s fairy tale, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

Unfortunately, this trend of overemphasizing everything has extended to political candidates. Anyone running for office needs to build “name identification” because if you do not know that person’s name, you probably aren’t going to vote for them.

In the February edition of The Tennessee Magazine, I encouraged you to pay closer attention to your local political races and get involved in your own community. Your school board members, county commissioners or state representatives have a greater effect on your daily life than most people acknowledge. However, it is impossible to ignore the impact that the presidential election this fall is having on campaigns — whether in Washington, D.C., or Warren County.

Now that the major-party candidates for president are known, inevitably one or both will tell you, “This is the most important election in our lifetime,” or, “If you don’t vote for me, the country will never be the same.”

This is the politician’s version of clickbait. It is meant to evoke fear and cause you to spend a few of those precious 86,400 seconds of your day devoting your thoughts to the election. But these types of statements are not unlike salesmen offering free samples to encourage you to consider their products or the old newspaper adage, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Getting your attention is the goal.

It is true that our country has significant challenges, and our federal government is facing important policy decisions. Unfortunately, those types of superlative statements don’t always reflect reality.

However, I would argue that we have faced many, many more serious challenges and existential threats in our nation’s history. Some of those stories are detailed in a wonderful book called “The Soul of America” by our fellow Tennessean, Jon Meacham. He very eloquently shows that our nation has always won “the battle for our better angels” and surmises that we will face many more.

While I will likely share thoughts in this column throughout the rest of this year about the policy challenges that confront your local cooperative and the reliability of the electric grid, I encourage you to look past this year’s grandiose speeches and shock-value statements by presidential candidates. This election will be important, but your choice should be based on your own vision for the future, not by an attempt to manipulate your attention.

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