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Show Gold In An Anniversary On May 11, 1985, the Rural Electrification Administration will be 50 years old. Normally, we don't pay much attention to the birthdays of federal agencies but "The RE A" is synonymous with the electrification of rural America, and that is special. Millions of Americans get electric service from what most of us call "The RE A." Actually, we mean a locally owned institution that borrowed money from the federal agency to extend electric service to unserved persons living in rural areas. That is the mission of the approximately 1,000 consumer-owned electric systems. Depending on what state they operate in, they're called Electric Membership Corporations, Rural Electric Cooperative, Electric Power Associations, even Public Power Districts or just plain Electric Coops. What most of them have in common is that they are owned by the persons who use the service, and they obtained most of their capital financing from the Rural Electrification Administration. In personal terms, "The REA" freed people who lived off the main roads and away from the towns from a life and livelihood dependent upon manual and animal labor. While urban America had had electricity for 50 years before the establishment of REA, only 10 percent of our farmers had reliable central station electric service. In 1935, rural residency was virtually synonymous with farming, so it is fair to say that only 10 percent of our rural people had electricity in 1935. Today, the nation is almost completely electrified. The people who live in rural areas have access to the same radio and television programs and can use the same appliances as the people who live in town. In 1835, because of the lack of electricity, there was a wide gulf in the way rural and urban people spent their time, in the way and the speed with which they obtained information, and in their productivity Government and local rural people went into a partnership following the creation of REA. It has been a beneficial one to the nation as well as the members of rural electric co-ops. The cooperatives last year repaid more than $3 billion in principal and interest to the federal government. In Us 50 years, REA has written off only two loans totalling $37,237 in principal and $7,241 in Interest. The, , .cooperatives, , .that owere , created to carry out the underlying mission of REA to electrify rural America have built more than two million miles of line, bringing electric service to 70 percent of the land area of the United States. They employ more than 55,000 people to serve their members. The successful performance of "The REA" has created billions of dollars in wealth through the appliance and equipment market that followed those rural lines. The increase in productivity of electrified farms put an abundance of cheap food on America's tables. As farming opportunities declined, the availability of electricity in rural areas gave rise to the establishment of industries and recreational enterprise In the countryside. In the 1960s, the rural development activities of the rural electric cooperatives helped bring about a reversal of rural population loss and preserved an economic base for many small towns. Rural America faces many problems, but it Is better able to handle them because of the leadership and strength of the 1,000 rural electric systems created under the REA program established 50 years ago by President Franklin .DelancvRoofclt.. , ,. |