By Staff
An organization that ultimately is responsible for generating the juice that keeps lights burning brightly in 380,000 homes and businesses in south and central Alabama and northwest Florida has just established an endowment that will provide scholarships to students majoring in agriculture at Auburn University.
Concerns about the precarious future facing farming prompted the Alabama Electric Cooperative-a company whose main mission is generating and transmitting wholesale power to its network of members-to fund a scholarship endowment, AEC 's Horace Horn said.
To be eligible for one of the scholarships, a student must live in a home that receives electric service from one of AEC's 20 distribution members. In Alabama, those members include the cities of Andalusia, Brundidge, Elba and Opp, along with Baldwin EMC, Central Alabama, Clarke-Washington EMC, Coosa Valley, Covington, Dixie, Pea River, Pioneer, South Alabama, Southern Pine, Tallapoosa River and Wiregrass electric cooperatives.
Florida members include CHELCO, Escambia River, Gulf Coast and West Florida electric co-ops.
As set up at AU, the AEC endowment is called the PowerSouth Energy Cooperative Endowment for Scholarship in the College of Agriculture.
To learn more about the PowerSouth and other scholarships available through the AU College of Agriculture, contact Deborah Solie, Student Services coordinator, at 334.844.8900 or das0002@auburn.edu.