This is my first column opportunity since our July 28 Annual Meeting at McCutcheon High School. Officially, 899 memberships attended, an 18 percent increase from 2017. Thank you to all who took the time to visit with us. I want to also extend my congratulations to Jan Harlow on her re-election to Tipmont’s board of directors.

Although the deadline for this article was before our 2018 Annual Meeting, by the time it lands in your mailbox, we'll have another meeting in the books. As I write this, Tipmont’s staff is putting the finishing touches on what we hope will be an informative and engaging experience for all in attendance.

2018 marks the 79th year that Tipmont’s membership will gather for our Annual Meeting. When Tipmont’s first Annual Meeting was held on August 26, 1938, it consisted of about 1,000 members looking to bring electricity to their rural homes and farms. Nearly eight decades later, we’re facing similar transformative circumstances today that will fundamentally redefine how Tipmont serves you tomorrow.

As you read this, crews are preparing the infrastructure that will deliver high speed broadband internet along with television and telephone service to Tipmont’s membership. I’ve received emails and calls from many of you, and I’m humbled by your excitement.

In last month’s article, I shared that Tipmont is bringing fiber broadband internet to our members. Feedback from our members has made it clear that their quality of life was threatened due to the lack of a high speed broadband internet service. As a member-owned and member-driven organization, Tipmont is uniquely positioned to meet these challenges.

Tipmont is bringing broadband internet to our members!

Each year in March, I write a summary of the previous year’s electric reliability report. It’s fascinating to write each year because of the variety in Mother Nature’s behavior, which is a major determinant of outages. 2015 was a very weather-neutral year, which resulted in one of the lowest numbers of total member minutes out in Tipmont’s history. We weren’t so lucky in 2016, as two summer storms caused member minutes out to spike by 33 percent. In 2017, the total number of member minutes out was down about 16 percent from 2016.

I frequently use this space to talk about how we define Tipmont as an essential services provider. We continued our journey in 2017 by focusing on those services that provide the best value while also staying consistent with our areas of expertise.

I am continually astonished at the breakneck pace that our world continues to change. In just a few years, many of today’s youth will have jobs that don’t even exist yet. How do we prepare these young people for a future that is so dynamic?

I wrote last month about Olive Meadows, a Veedersburg resident who served as a Tipmont REMC troubleshooter for 18 years. Troubleshooters were volunteer, unpaid positions that would field outage calls 24/7 and relay information to the Tipmont line workers.