Pennyrile Electric held its 88th annual meeting June 24 virtually from the corporate office in Hopkinsville.
At the close of the meeting, board elections and Bob Allen of Schochoh was reelected. He currently serves as vice president of the board.
Board Chairman George Fox gave a brief welcome and presided over the meeting. Lee Harton, Attorney for the Cooperative, reported that a quorum was met as required by the Pennyrile RECC Bylaws. The minutes of the previous annual meeting were approved, and Harton read the official Notice of Meeting and Proof of Publication.
Pennyrile Electric President & CEO Alan Gates expressed his gratitude to the 3,988 members that attended the cooperative’s member appreciation events over the past two weeks.
Gates spoke about Pennyrile Electric’s project with HES Energynet to bring fiber internet service to the rural areas the cooperative serves. Gates stated that 85 percent of the cooperative’s service area now has access to high speed internet service through HES Energynet fiber. He notes the cooperative is pursuing a grant that would allow them to serve the remaining members who do not have access to high speed internet service. Members interested in Energynet internet service are encouraged to go to www.goenergynet.com.
Gates talked briefly about the recent severe weather that impacted reliability to Pennyrile Electric Members. He said, “Moving forward, we are focusing on areas of improved reliability and hardening of the Pennyrile system to help mitigate areas of weakness. I would like to thank each member affected during these weather-related events for your patience enduring extended outages and your support of the Pennyrile employees working long hours to restore your electric service”.
Harton announced that votes for the board election were still being tallied and the cooperative would announce the results later in the afternoon.
As of 3:30 p.m. the votes were tallied. The results are as follows:
Western District – Bates Payne, Jr. 763
Eastern District – Robert E. (Bob) Allen 728
Cumberland District – Joe E. Rogers – 521
Mindy Golladay Hargrove 524
The other representative from Logan and Todd counties on the board, Bryson Price of Lewisburg, is in the middle of his term and was not up for reelection.