Midwest Energy Cooperative honors creativity and learning with Strengthening Schools grants
Students from 17 regional public schools will enjoy new opportunities this semester after Midwest Energy Cooperative awarded $30,476.20 in Strengthening Schools grants. The grants are funded with partnership dollars from Touchstone Energy Cooperative. A committee comprised of co-op members evaluated and scored 89 applications totaling more than $156,000, then determined the final awards without knowledge [...]
Christmas Eve Windstorm Leaves Thousands Without Power
‘Twas the night before Christmas when 70 mph winds whipped through Michigan, knocking down trees and power lines, and leaving thousands of Michigan residents without electricity. Collectively the windstorm resulted in nearly 120,000 outages for Michigan’s electric co-ops. “This event was more challenging than the Christmas ice storm of 2012,” commented Joe McElroy, safety and [...]
Knudtson Retires As Country Lines Editor
After 24 years of editing and writing for Michigan Country Lines magazine, Gail Knudtson is moving on and plans to “spend more time with family and friends, travel as much as possible, do some volunteer work, and maybe get back to some freelance writing!” she says. After earning a journalism degree from MSU and seven [...]
PIE&G Partners With CoBank On Charity Donation
The Presque Isle Electric & Gas Co-op Board of Directors has approved another year of participation in CoBank’s “Sharing Success” program, a $3 million fund that benefits co-ops and the charitable groups they support throughout America. CoBank is a nonprofit co-op that serves as a “bank for cooperatives” nationwide. Under this program, CoBank has matched [...]
Edson Leaves Legacy At Cherryland
Nick Edson, local page editor and key accounts rep for Cherryland Electric Co-op, is retiring after 15 years of service and writing great stories for Michigan Country Lines magazine. “When I started working at Cherryland, I was given the chance to do volunteer work and it changed my life,” Edson says. “My goal was to [...]
Police Instructor Trains Co-ops On Preventing Dog Bites
Each year, over 4.5 million people in the U.S. are bitten by dogs, with one in five requiring medical attention. People most affected are senior citizens, children, postal workers, and utility workers. “We brought in a national expert in fall 2015 to train our co-op and municipal member employees on ways to prevent dog bites and [...]