Electric Co-op Today

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—It was May 11, 1935, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Rural Electrification Administration. Coincidentally, the Connect 2010 conference had its opening session May 11, 2010. So “FDR” stopped by.

Ed Asner reprised his role as FDR with a message to communicators at Connect 2010. (Photo By: Michael W. Kahn)

“Seventy-five years ago on this very day, I issued the executive order that gave life to the REA,” said actor Ed Asner, who portrays Roosevelt in a one-man show. “It’s been a victorious march, bringing power to more than 42 million of your fellow Americans, and often struggling every step of the way. I say, ‘Well done!’”

Asner—best known as Lou Grant in the “Mary Tyler Moore” show—appeared as FDR at NRECA’s annual meeting in February. He once again took the stage in a wheelchair, sitting next to a table with the type of radio that families used to listen to Roosevelt’s fireside chats. But for Connect, his monologue was a bit different.

“I understand that many of you here are employed as communicators. That’s my job, I know about it,” Asner continued in character. “You are the ones who tell the stories of your individual cooperatives. Your stories continue this long, ongoing narrative about rural electrification.”

But on the 75th anniversary of the REA, it was Asner, as Roosevelt, who told the story.

“When those electric cooperatives were unleashed, they grew to a force of more than 900 that power Alaskan and Hawaiian fishing villages, dairy farms in Vermont, grain elevators in the Midwest, oil fields in Texas, Indian reservations out west and so many communities in between,” he said. “That, friends, is progress. Progress is the convergence of courage, hope and work.”

Related content: Connect Conference coverage

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