The End

Change is coming for Lane Electric Cooperative members. After much conversation and debate, the co-op board and management staff decided to go in a different direction to communicate with its members. As a result, this is the final issue of Lane Electric’s edition of Ruralite magazine.

Instead, the co-op will communicate through a quarterly newsletter that will be mailed and emailed to its members, and posted on its website and Facebook.

“We plan to do more electronic outreach,” Lane Electric General Manager Scott Coe says. “Our website is being revamped. We’ll have more robust content on our website than we have had in the past. We’ll include videos, not just written content. There’ll be a lot more real-time information. We hope our members appreciate that we’re trying to get them information faster. We figure there’ll be an adjustment period, that’s to be expected, but we hope the new communication model meets our members’ needs.”

Scott says the newsletter and website content will focus on co-op and power industry news and features. “(Ruralite magazine) played a pivotal role and been a strong conduit for cooperatives to communicate with their members for decades, but communication styles are changing,” Scott says. “We just decided now would be the appropriate time for this change.”

1 factor that brought about change is Lane Electric’s recent purchase of the service area in the McKenzie River Valley from Cedar Flats to east of Vida. Those 3,300 meters, purchased from Eugene Water and Electric Board, will be added on May 1 to the 13,700 meters that are presently in the co-op’s service territory.

Scott explains it’s best to make the communication change now so those new co-op members don’t get used to 1 communication method only to deal with another change soon after. Another factor favoring a change was cost savings.

“There is some cost saving in the new communication model,” Scott says.

Chris Seubert, the longest-serving member of the Lane Electric board of directors at 23 years, says there were several discussions about a communication change before agreement on a final decision.

“People have been questioning the value of Ruralite’s content, whether it’s been relevant, whether it fits our demographic,” he says. “We’re in a different age now, a technological age. The cost was becoming significant, and we were looking for other ways to connect with members and do it more cost-effectively.”

Lane Electric contracted with Ruralite by at least 1958, but possibly a year or 2 earlier. The magazine itself was first published in 1954.

Chris, now 71, says the change away from Ruralite is bittersweet for him since he first started looking at the magazine at age 7. His memories include developing a pen pal relationship with a Central Oregon youngster through the magazine and, later in his early 30s, running an advertisement in the magazine for his fledgling Flag Connection business. That ad resulted in a large U.S. flag order from a jet boat business in Gold Beach.

Rick Crinklaw, a past 38-year Lane Electric employee with the last 21 as the co-op’s general manager from 1994-2015, says he’s been familiar with Ruralite since he was in grade school. Both his father and grandfather were employed in the cooperative electric industry.

Now 71, Rick admits the content of the magazine has changed from its early years, when there were more rural agricultural farm subjects.

“The rural element has tended to fade a bit,” he says. “Many of those rural areas aren’t farms anymore. A lot of seniors have followed Ruralite for many, many years, and I’m sure they will miss it.

“But now there are more modern ways to communicate with members,” Chris says. “We have to adapt.

“We really looked at this issue hard,” he says. “Ruralite has been an institution at our co-op. It’s bittersweet, but it was time for a change.”