MONROE, Ga. – We’re all familiar with drive-through restaurants, drive-through banks and drive-through pharmacies. Las Vegas even has a drive-through wedding chapel. Now Walton Electric Membership Corporation (EMC) can add its Annual Meeting to the list of drive-throughs.
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Walton EMC Consumer Services Director Sherry Horvieth electronically registers one of over 1,500 customer-owners who took part in the modified 2020 annual meeting. The meeting is held to allow customer-owners to elect the cooperative’s board and participate in other business. The format for this year was changed due to health concerns from COVID-19. |
Out of concern for the health and well-being of the cooperative’s customer-owners, Walton EMC’s board of directors voted to modify the 2020 event and take care of necessary business by allowing customer-owners to participate from the safety of their vehicles.
From 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday, June 20, more than 1,400 participants – a number typical of a regular year – did just that. In addition to voting for directors and approving the minutes of last year’s meeting, those driving to the headquarters office received the traditional bucket of gifts.
Directors re-elected without opposition included Farmington District Director Michael Lowder and Good Hope District Director Tommy Adcock. Incumbent Centerville-South Snellville Director Dan Chelko was also re-elected after facing a challenge from Ken Rempe.
Employees, along with a committee of customer-owners who oversaw the director election, took precautions when interacting with drivers, including wearing masks and gloves and using hand sanitizer.
“We know this was quite a different event than what our customer-owners are accustomed to,” said CEO Ronnie Lee. “I appreciate their flexibility and adapting to this unusual situation brought about by the pandemic. Hopefully the meeting will be back to normal in 2021.”
“We can’t thank the deputies assisting us from the Walton County Sheriff’s Office enough,” said COO Ron Marshall. “They did a great job of managing traffic and keeping everyone safe.”
Walton EMC is an innovative, customer-owned and focused electric utility serving accounts in 10 Northeast Georgia counties between Atlanta and Athens. In its long history of meeting customer-owners’ needs, the cooperative established successful natural gas and security subsidiaries as well as nationally recognized residential consumer and commercial customer choice solar initiatives. For more information, visit waltonemc.com.
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