Rural Electric Cooperatives: Past, Present and Future
             In the beginning it was dark; there was no light besides the sun, there were no cooperatives, power lines, or night-lights. Can you imagine life without electricity? I can not, nor do I want to. You would not have a refrigerator, hot water, washing machine, dryer, or many other things. Sibyl Jacobs, my grandmother, clearly remembers life without electricity. "We were so excited when we got electricity at our house. We got electricity at our house before others in the community because we lived on the main highway. We were so glad we didn't have to carry kerosene lamps from room to room at night. We got our first refrigerator in 1942 when my brother sent money home from the war for us to buy one. The Jacobs girls would all come to our house to iron on Saturday because they had not yet got electricity and we had an electric iron. Oh, it was so nice! I had to starch and iron pants and shirts for my four brothers and Papa. It was so good to have an electric iron; we didn't have to go back and forth to the fire to keep reheating our irons. And it was much cooler in the summer since we didn't have to keep the fire going for the ironing. We got a washing machine in 1945. By 1945 we had lights, an iron, a washing machine, a dryer, and a refrigerator. It is hard to imagine even now how much having electricity changed our lives. Oh, and having a bathroom and running water inside was also wonderful"(Jacobs 1). All these things my grandmother talked about we take for granted. With my generation just starting the twenty- first century, I think we should all stop and think about where we are today, how far we have come and what the possibilities are for the future.
             The idea of electrifying homes across America was first realized on April 8, 1935 when President Roosevelt signed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. Rural electrification was one of the eig...