The winter sunrise had just begun turning the tree tops along the ridge to the west into a vein of gold against the pale blue sky. But shadows still veiled the snow-covered land down in the hollow where the road crossed over Coal Creek. There, Marsha Williamson Mohr pulled her white Subaru off to the… Continue reading.

Cold, snowy winter days are especially challenging when you live off a narrow, winding gravel road surrounded by acres of trees. On the rare occasions when we don’t have to venture out in the season’s elements, I do admit it’s quite nice to look out the window and admire the pristine snow carpeting the ground… Continue reading.

Clamps and vices are made for holding things stable. But you don’t have to be a master carpenter to know that when too much pressure is applied while using them, the object between the grips can crack, crimp or warp. The result is the opposite effect: the object becomes destabilized and damaged. Electric utilities are… Continue reading.

Thirteen of the 22 winning students from the 2011 Cooperative Calendar of Student Art attended a special recognition reception at the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis, Sept. 30. The event was the first in the new partnership between Electric Consumer, which produces the calendar each year for some 20-participating electric cooperatives, and the Hoosier Salon,… Continue reading.

Tilt toward wind turbines needs to be more than a monetary quest Bartholomew County grain farmer Jay Shoaf could hardly be confused with Don Quixote, the retired country gentleman of 17th century Spanish literature. To make better the world, Quixote, the story goes, set aside sanity to become an idealistic “knight-errant,” and wound up jousting… Continue reading.

Kyle Driscoll is one graduating senior who’s not only thought a lot about his future, he’s actually felt it in the air and held it in his hands. Driscoll helped construct an Indiana Touchstone Energy Home as part of his high school building trade class this past school year. “It’s pretty exciting to know that… Continue reading.

Contest’s youngest ‘Artist of the Year’ blazes her own artistic trail Heidi Ziebarth is an 11-year-old with a sense for adventure and a love for nature. Her family’s Warsaw home backs up to a small neighborhood lake where she spends much of her time outdoors exploring. And for the subject of an upcoming speech in school,… Continue reading.

Blend the soaring imaginations and passions of almost 2,800 student artists from around Indiana with monthly calendar themes and what do you get? The 13th annual Student Art Contest and subsequent publication, Cooperative Calendar of Student Art, is what. The wall calendar, made available by participating electric cooperatives around the state and Electric Consumer in… Continue reading.

“Utility scale” is one of those vague phrases the media, including Electric Consumer, use in stories about the electric utility industry when no other words seem to succinctly suffice. “Utility scale” means something big … really big. “Utility scale” describes the size and scope of the generation, transmission and distribution equipment required to reliably and… Continue reading.

Few things cripple power lines like an ice storm. A year ago at this time, in late January 2009, one of the largest such storms on record swept through the central United States, coating power lines with up to 3 inches of ice. Thousands of miles of power lines and tens of thousands of utility… Continue reading.

  The day after Valentines 2009 was a gray, cold Sunday across northern Indiana. Four teenage friends from the Royal Center area were hanging out that afternoon at one of their homes. Toward dusk, the four, Lee Whittaker, Ashley Taylor, David Wooldridge and Joshua Kline, accepted an invitation to dinner from David’s mom. They climbed… Continue reading.

Nuclear power in the United States has experienced a roller coaster ride of booms and busts. When the first wave of commercial reactors was built in the 1950s, Lewis Strauss, then chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission — forerunner of today’s federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission — envisioned a future where nuclear energy would be “too… Continue reading.