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.

‘Freedom is not free” is a quote engraved on the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The price is evident on Washington’s war memorials all along the mall and on each white stone marker up the hillside across the Potomac River at Arlington National Cemetery. And our democratic republic form of government also comes… Continue reading.

In Mikala Greenlee’s paintings, she mixes art with her heart and her mind. “If you’re going to do something, do something that you have an interest in or you’d have fun painting or drawing,” Mikala advises other student artists. “They turn out better if you’re having fun doing them.” For her, that combination produces works… Continue reading.

For a dozen years now, a baker’s dozen pieces of art — one for each numbered grade in school representing each month of the year along with a kindergartner’s cover — has been picked in an Indiana student art contest sponsored by Electric Consumer and participating electric cooperatives. The spray is displayed in the annual… Continue reading.

Childhood dream comes true for Katie Stam From the age of 3, Katie Stam had a dream. Some would have called it an impossible dream. But, of course, anything is possible at an age when imagination is limitless, when pageant sashes can be fashioned from Christmas ribbon, and coveted tiaras can be created from empty… Continue reading.

Based in Indianapolis, new co-op to gather renewable resources for electric co-ops Indiana may not be wind-swept or sun-drenched enough for many high-profile, utility-scale renewable energy projects. But for over 70 years it has been tightly co-op-connected. Those connections just got stronger — at one of the most critical junctures in the history of the… Continue reading.

Cooperative effort ‘earns’ Indiana $20 million Lincoln collection “Determine that the thing can be and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.” — Abraham Lincoln, 1848 (This article originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of Electric Consumer.) This Feb. 12 marks Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday. But Lincoln-philes and historians in Indiana got… Continue reading.

(In honor of Veterans Day this month, we present this account of what it was like to be a Merchant Marine during World War II by Elwood DeHority, a consumer of LaGrange County REMC. The photo at right is of DeHority in 1943.) A turning point in my life happened 65 years ago when I… Continue reading.

Note to readers: The final element of the EPRI  “prism” strategy looks at on-site power.   Consumers find growing role in creating their own energy The electric meter on Revone Bauwens’ house was spinning backward one sunny morning last month. But nothing was wrong with the meter. Nor was the Floyds Knobs resident doing anything… Continue reading.

‘Live, laugh, learn” is the tag line Purdue Cooperative Housing uses on its Web site to describe the university’s alternative to residence halls and Greek fraternities and sororities. Co-op housing students live and grow close to one another like family in the 12 various co-op houses. They enjoy free time socializing together and competing in… Continue reading.

The store is a consumer-owned cooperative, located a block off the courthouse square in Paoli. And while anyone can shop there, co-op members occasionally get discounts on its many locally-produced products. But more than that, members always reap the benefits of supporting a store dedicated to locally-grown, all-natural goods. They have a store dedicated to… Continue reading.

 Nostalgia and family: double feature now playing at today’s drive-ins One Saturday evening in August, Misty and Robert Shaffer drove up to the Huntington Drive-In Theatre from their home in Gas City and backed their pick-up truck into an open slot, front row center. As their daughters, Gabrielle, 11, and Marrah, 9, went off to… Continue reading.