Rural Missouri - January 2023 - 4

RM | COOPERATION
Where it all began
Celebrating 75 years telling the story of rural Missouri
Editor's note: As the Rural Missouri staff looks back on 75 years covering the people and places of our great
state, here's an editorial that ran in the inaugural issue in January 1948. Written by Editor Homer Hill and
illustrated by his wife, Irma, it tells the mission behind the publication's launch so many years ago. We dedicate
this 75th anniversary edition to the staff that produced it - and to its faithful readers who have welcomed
us into their homes.
A
handful of
farmers and
a county
agent sat
under an elm tree
one afternoon. They
worked over county
maps and talked. The
hot weather was little
noted. An REA co-op
was beginning to take
shape.
This may have been
your co-op. Or perhaps
yours started in the district
school, by a friendly
fi reside or at the town
square on Saturday afternoon.
In
any event, your
co-op, like all the rest,
began with far-seeing,
community-spirited men
and women working
together. As the word went
along, they were joined by
other farmers down the
road.
This neighborliness - mutual confi dence and
desire to work together - has achieved a modern
business miracle. Without subsidization, it has
brought into your community an electric system
whose worth is beyond measurement.
As one farmer partook of the joys that electric
service affords, he helped his neighbor get it. Thus
traditional American spirit has fostered in Missouri
43 electric cooperatives that serve more than
100,000 rural homes. The REA family has grown
large.
In this same tradition, your co-op has joined
with other cooperatives in the state to work jointly
4 RURAL MISSOURI | JANUARY 2023
together. As the word went
along, they were joined by
on problems it could not
solve by working alone. Out
of this association have
come many achievements
to advance rural electrifi -
cation all over Missouri.
Now your electric cooperatives
have started a
new venture - the publication
of a monthly
paper, Rural Electric
Missourian. Since member-consumers
own the
and will be devoted to
your interest.
The Missourian
will bring you items
of interest about
will bring you items
of interest about
your REA neighbors
throughout the state.
It will bring factual
your REA neighbors
throughout the state.
It will bring factual
stories on how the
electric servant aids
farm production, homemaking,
education and health - how it saves
labor, cuts costs and makes for a fuller life for
young and old.
It will tell of new things in electric farming and
electric living. It will be a trading post for your ideas
and those of other farm folk.
To enable you to protect the great cooperative
enterprise you have built, the Missourian will
expose any interests that seek to hinder or destroy
it, irrespective of where they are found.
As we begin the new year, the Missourian pledges
itself to work with co-op members in their efforts to
keep the lights burning in their own homes and to
extend them to another 120,000 farmers awaiting
them.
and will be devoted to
your interest.
Missourian
ber-consumers own the
electric co-ops, the
sourian
electric co-ops, the Missourian
is your paper

Rural Missouri - January 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Rural Missouri - January 2023