A MESSAGE FROM YOUR GENERAL MANAGER/CEO

GARY RAYBON

Happy Birthday, Texas Co-op Power!

Eighty years ago this month—July 1, 1944—the inaugural issue of the publication that would become Texas Co-op Power announced in bold type that “The Baby Is Born.”

Issue No. 1 marked “a distinct milestone in the progress to completely electrify rural Texas,” the broadsheet announced. “The more the public knows about [electric] cooperatives, how they function, why they function and what they are accomplishing, and the service they are rendering directly to rural people and rural institutions and indirectly to urban people and urban institutions, the more friends and supporters they will have.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Texas Co-op Power looks a whole lot different than it did in 1944, but the mission is still the same.

For nearly as long as our cooperative has existed, TCP has helped us reach you, our members, with important news and information. The safety and energy efficiency tips that we publish in these pages are a crucial part of our mission to keep our community safe and thriving.

The feature stories about Texas’ people, places, and food; the history columns; essays; and reader-submitted content aim to entertain, enlighten, and maybe even inspire. It’s all part of a tradition that started eight decades ago, not long after Wharton County Electric Cooperative was founded.

Long before social media and well before our website, this magazine served as an important communications vehicle for our community, and Texas Co-op Power remains a vital tool.

You see, ever since WCEC was built by farmers, ranchers, and their neighbors back in 1938, we have remained a local business serving local people. We’re proud of that distinction.

When you call the office or come by to pay your bill, you’ll speak to one of your neighbors. And the money you pay for electricity is invested in your local utility—not lining anyone’s pockets. All the folks on the board of directors, they’re members too.

You can feel good about investing in us because we’re invested in our community. Texas Co-op Power helps us keep it that way.

Thanks for reading along with us.