Co-op News
FDR’s Visit to Co-op Remembered
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Barnesville, Ga., to dedicate the Lamar Electric Co-op, some 50,000 people turned out to see him at Gordon College.
A speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt is commemorated on this plaque. (Photo By: Steve Chalker)
That was on Aug. 11, 1938, decades before Anthony McCalla was born. McCalla, 24, attended the school and learned about FDR’s visit in a history class.
He was surprised that no one had placed a marker at the site, so he asked the Georgia Historical Society to do so.
Despite being turned down three times, McCalla persevered, and the marker commemorating “Roosevelt’s Barnesville Speech” was unveiled at an Oct. 6 ceremony.
Despite being turned down three times, McCalla persevered, and the marker commemorating “Roosevelt’s Barnesville Speech” was unveiled at an Oct. 6 ceremony. McCalla was joined by Raleigh Henry, president/CEO of Southern Rivers Energy, as the co-op is now known, and Paul Wood, president/CEO of Georgia EMC.
“What a special young man to recognize and appreciate the contributions of a president who served long before Anthony was born,” Wood noted. “It’s even more impressive when you consider he really pushed to make this happen.”
In his speech 71 years earlier, FDR called electricity “a modern necessity of life and not a luxury,” adding that it should be “in every village, in every home and on every farm.”