[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 6781]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              WASHINGTON ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE ANNIVERSARY

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to call the Senate's attention 
to the work of the Washington Electric Cooperative, which provides 
power and electricity to thousands of Vermonters, including to Marcelle 
and me at our home in Middlesex. This year the co-op, as it is better 
known to Vermonters, celebrates its 75th anniversary. The co-op formed 
in the midst of the rural electrification movement of the 1930s. On 
December 2, 1939, my predecessor in the Senate, then-Vermont Governor 
George Aiken, flipped the switch that brought electricity to 150 farms. 
I doubt that anyone could have imagined back then that the co-op would 
grow to serve the 11,000 members it serves today, covering about 2800 
square miles in parts of 41 towns in north-central Vermont.
  The Washington Electric Co-Op has indeed grown, from the setting of 
the first poles on the McKnight Farm in East Montpelier, to operating 
1200 miles of distribution lines with eight substations today. I am 
proud of the Washington Electric Co-Op, both as a customer and as a 
Vermonter.
  In honor of this important occasion, I ask that the article ``How the 
Washington Electric Co-op Began'' from the 1964 Washington Electric Co-
op annual meeting be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                How the Washington Electric Co-Op Began


 (Reminiscence by a Co-op member printed in the 1964 WEC Annual Report)

       One July day Harmon Kelly called on Lorie and Elizabeth 
     Tarshis to suggest their writing to Washington to ask about 
     rural electricity. Raymond Ebbett and Lyle Young met with 
     them. They decided to try to form an REA Co-op. Meetings 
     followed in people's living rooms. On July 14th the first 
     public meeting, conducted by Harmon Kelly, was held in the 
     Grange Hall, Maple Corner. It had been hard to get people to 
     come. Meetings had been held before about getting Green 
     Mountain Power and had always ended in disappointment. As Mr. 
     Kelly talked, people became optimistic and began to suggest 
     sources of water power. We even considered the radical idea 
     of a diesel engine. Several strangers sat listening in the 
     dark shadows at the back of the lamp lit hall. One made a 
     long rambling speech against socialistic schemes ending: 
     ``And you'll have to admit I told you.''
       We found out who our visitors were when they went to the 
     owners of the best farms and promised them Green Mountain 
     Power within three weeks if they would ``give up this 
     nonsense.'' Harmon Kelly was told to give it up or lose his 
     job. Neither bribes nor threats worked. On July 29th the REA 
     Co-op was formed with Harmon Kelly, Lyle Young, and Elizabeth 
     Kent Tarshis as incorporators.
       My diary for October 7th 1939 reads: ``Autumn color 
     splendid. Electricity booming. Stakes set to mark where poles 
     will be.'' On October 12th, the first pole was set on the 
     McKnight farm in East Montpelier. I remember it, well braced, 
     standing black against a cold sky with bright leaves whirling 
     in the wind and a man from Washington saying: ``You folks 
     don't know what you've started. I wouldn't be surprised if 
     you had a thousand members some day.'' The first hundred 
     looked at each other in disbelief. No one imagined there 
     would be more than three thousand in 1964.
       On a May night in 1940, for the first time since the power 
     was turned on, I drove along the County Road. In houses, dark 
     last year or with lamps dimly burning, every window was a 
     blaze of light. There was music everywhere--cows listening to 
     records, housewives to radios. I stopped, found one friend 
     happily running a new vacuum cleaner over an already 
     immaculate rug. I hurried on to my own dark house and turned 
     on every one of our new 100 watt bulbs. The miracle had come.

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