Two members, same value

When the lights came on

Work­ing hard and prob­lem solv­ing was what folks did in rur­al Amer­i­ca. The same goes for Bil­ly Jenk­ins and his fam­i­ly. His moth­er and father lived dur­ing the Great Depres­sion and under­stood the val­ue of a dol­lar, what it took to earn it and how far it had to stretch to pro­vide for a fam­i­ly.

His par­ents were share­crop­pers. They worked hard and even­tu­al­ly earned enough to live on their own prop­er­ty in west­ern York Coun­ty. The prop­er­ty came with a house—a house full of love, but no elec­tric­i­ty.

Jenk­ins, who spent his career in edu­ca­tion, serv­ing as a math teacher and school admin­is­tra­tor with Rock Hill School Dis­trict and as Clover School District’s super­in­ten­dent, vivid­ly remem­bers when the lights came on at his family’s farm­house. At the time, York Elec­tric was known to him as the REA (the Rur­al Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Act, which led to the cre­ation of elec­tric coop­er­a­tives).

“I remem­ber hav­ing a string tied to my bed­post,” Jenk­ins says. “Since we only had one light in each room, the string allowed me to cut off the light after I got into bed. Pret­ty inge­nious for a kid!”

Before the lights came on, rur­al life required cre­ativ­i­ty and patience. Jenk­ins remem­bers doing his home­work each night while lying on his stom­ach near the fire­place so he could see enough to read and write. As a child, he was excit­ed when he heard about the co-op work­ing to bring pow­er to his road, know­ing he and his fam­i­ly were about to expe­ri­ence a lifechang­ing moment.

“Elec­tric­i­ty made everyone’s life eas­i­er,” he says, “but espe­cial­ly my mom’s since she had health strug­gles after hav­ing polio as a child and used a wheel­chair.”

He also recalls being grate­ful for a ceil­ing sock­et that dou­bled as an out­let for an elec­tric iron. Being left-hand­ed, it helped him keep the cord out of the way, just one small detail that made dai­ly life eas­i­er.

“It’s real­ly about embrac­ing change,” says Jenk­ins.

Elec­tric coop­er­a­tives met the chal­lenge of pow­er­ing rur­al Amer­i­ca and cre­at­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties that once seemed unimag­in­able. Farm­ers like Jenk­ins’ father, a share­crop­per that raised turkeys, weren’t just cus­tomers, they were mem­bers invest­ed in some­thing that made a dif­fer­ence for the greater good.

“The co-op brought the world to us,” Jenk­ins says.

Today, he’s grate­ful to see that same inno­v­a­tive spir­it as the co-op keeps pace with new tech­nolo­gies while still being a good neigh­bor. As a proud father, grand­fa­ther and great-grand­fa­ther, Jenk­ins sees that shar­ing the co-op’s busi­ness mod­el and sto­ry of com­mit­ment to bring­ing the world to com­mu­ni­ties through inno­va­tion and tech­nol­o­gy makes them good neigh­bors today.

New tech­nolo­gies, same neigh­bor­ly feel

Com­mu­ni­ty is a theme that runs through­out the his­to­ry of elec­tric coop­er­a­tives, and it has always shaped how they oper­ate and serve their mem­bers. Employ­ees and mem­bers alike share this val­ue, one that sits at the heart of the coop­er­a­tive busi­ness mod­el. For Niegel Kingswood, a Lake Wylie res­i­dent and York Elec­tric mem­ber, com­mu­ni­ty is exact­ly what sets the co-op apart from oth­er util­i­ties.

“When peo­ple come togeth­er and work togeth­er, com­mu­ni­ty is high­light­ed, and that’s what mat­ters most,” Kingswood says. York Electric’s dri­ve to pro­vide excel­lent ser­vice over prof­it is a defin­ing dif­fer­ence.

Kingswood and his wife moved to the Fort Mill area from Eng­land 23 years ago for work, and they’ve been co-op mem­bers ever since. Togeth­er, they have three chil­dren and have wit­nessed sub­stan­tial growth for their com­mu­ni­ty and coop­er­a­tive. One moment that stood out to him was receiv­ing his first cap­i­tal cred­it check, sig­ni­fy­ing the first time he noticed he was part of some­thing dif­fer­ent.

He believes York Elec­tric sets itself apart through easy com­mu­ni­ca­tion, afford­able prices and mean­ing­ful ser­vices.

“Per­haps the best way to tell if a util­i­ty is doing a good job is the num­ber of times they dri­ve the con­ver­sa­tion,” Kingswood explains. “With York Elec­tric, the mem­ber dri­ves the con­ver­sa­tion.”

York Elec­tric has always pri­or­i­tized mem­bers, and Kingswood says this is reflect­ed in the co-op’s ongo­ing efforts to lis­ten and improve, from mem­ber sur­veys to ini­tia­tives meant to enhance mem­ber com­fort.

“They go above and beyond to take care of their mem­bers and their com­mu­ni­ty,” he says. To him, mem­bers aren’t just cus­tomers because they have a voice and can take respon­si­bil­i­ty for what hap­pens. “The more I save, the bet­ter elec­tric prices are for all.”

Kingswood has embraced many of the cooperative’s new­er pro­grams and under­stands the impor­tance of learn­ing and grow­ing along­side new tech­nolo­gies. At his home, he par­tic­i­pates in the rooftop solar pro­gram, the smart ther­mo­stat pro­gram and the elec­tric vehi­cle pro­gram. He’s found that dis­counts on night­time charg­ing is the most ben­e­fi­cial for him.

“When we came here, our bill was over $600 in the sum­mer months.” he says. “Through these coop­er­a­tive pro­grams, we now aver­age $100 dur­ing those same months, which has pro­vid­ed tremen­dous sav­ings.”

Today, Kingswood’s fam­i­ly relies entire­ly on elec­tric­i­ty to pow­er their lives, includ­ing his dai­ly remote work and their pri­ma­ry means of trans­porta­tion.

“What the co-op does is essen­tial to our dai­ly lives,” he says. “It’s nice to be a part of a busi­ness mod­el that real­ly cares about the lives they sup­port.”

After over two decades in the area, Kingswood says the cooperative’s local feel­ing has remained con­stant, even in an ever-chang­ing indus­try that requires new pro­grams to meet the moment.