As the Vice President of Operations at Blue Ridge Electric Co-op, I have the unique privilege of seeing firsthand what it takes to keep the lights on for our members. It’s something I think about daily.

When you see forecasts of storms across our part of South Carolina, our linemen see a call to action. They are always ready to respond when outages occur. They are ready to leave family dinners and miss Little League games so they can work in challenging conditions through the night to get your power restored as safely and quickly as possible.

That readiness is not accidental. It comes from our rigorous training, deep experience and a shared commitment to serving others.

What makes linemen especially remarkable is that they are restoring power to their own communities. They raise their families here. Their children go to our schools. They shop at our grocery stores. They understand that the service they provide is essential to our daily lives — to our local businesses, farms and our neighbors, who depend on power for medical equipment or to simply keep food from spoiling.

Powering home is deeply personal to them.

Electric cooperatives were built on the principle

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