Current Issue

How do you like them apples?

Gays Mills Orchards offer abundance of fall fun This publication has long had an affinity for the apple orchards that line the ridge along Highway 171 just outside of Gays Mills in Southwest Wisconsin. After all, our histories are uniquely entwined. Legend has it that the very seed for the Wisconsin REA News was planted

A Stormy Conversation

Since the peak storm season began this spring, damaging weather has affected many parts of rural Wisconsin. Tornados, high winds, lightning, heavy rains, and flooding have caused significant damage to a number of electric cooperative distribution systems, prompting activation of mutual assistance among multiple co-ops to get the lights back on as soon as it

Youth Board elected; Jump River names new manager; Price director passes; Nominees confirmed; Consumers losing in IL retail competition

Youth Board members elected Sponsored by local electric cooperatives across the state, more than 120 students took part in this summer’s 54th Wisconsin Electric Cooperative Association (WECA) Youth Leadership Congress at UW-River Falls. Here, students participate in a team-building exercise, and the freshly elected WECA Youth Board for the coming year poses for their first

Purity at a Price

Should Americans subsidize emission-free nuclear? In separate cases two weeks apart during July, federal judges in Chicago and New York ruled that there had been no violation of either the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause or federal regulatory prerogatives. The state legislatures of Illinois and New York enacted proposals creating taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies valued at

Where your voice makes a difference

Q&A with co-op historian Ted Case Ted Case has spent the past several years diving deeply into unexplored parts of electric co-op history. He described how co-ops have affected national policy since the 1930s in his first book, Power Plays: The U.S. Presidency, Electric Cooperatives, and the Transformation of Rural America. The title of his