Employee Milestones Recognized at WVE Annual Meeting

Mark Weber, Mike Trapp, Jason Soward and Marty Brown each received a Milestone Award during the 83rd Annual Membership Meeting of the Whetstone Valley Electric Cooperative held Thursday, March 27, at Milbank High School. Weber was recognized for 35 years of service, Trapp for 25 years, Soward for 10 years, and Brown for five years.

The 2025 Whetstone Valley – Basin Electric scholarship for $1,000 was awarded to Mya Heinje of Wilmot.

Ron Kottke won the $500 cash drawing. Kyra Tostenson won the $100 drawing for those in attendance between the ages of 14 and 18 years of age. Jalyn Anderson won the $50 drawing for children 13 years of age or younger in attendance. 

Approximately 360 people attended the meeting. Secretary Joel Adler stated 266 voting members had registered and were present, creating a quorum.

The National Anthem was led by Ashlynn Batchelor. Pastor Justin Neugubauer of Milbank provided the invocation. Adler introduced the board of directors and officers and recognized former employees and directors.

Adler reported that capital credits in the amount of $8,725,369 have been returned to members and that $541,435 has been approved for the 2025 general retirement to be credited to members in May. He reminded those in attendance that the returned cash or credit is a share of the member’s equity in the coop that’s to be returned this year.

Adler called on the cooperative’s general counsel, Harvey Oliver, to report the election results. Oliver announced districts 7, 8, and 9 had open seats. Only one candidate for each of the districts was submitted – Joel Adler, Krista Atyeo-Gortmaker, and Paul Nelson, respectively. With no other members nominated, the candidates were declared elected by general consent of the membership.

General Manager Dave Page addressed rising costs that led to a rate adjustment in February 2025. He cited a nearly nine percent increase in wholesale power costs experienced in January 2025 that now represents 53 percent of Whetstone Valley Electric’s total operating expenses.

Page also introduced Jon Christensen, Whetstone’s operations manager. In the 2024 operations review, Christensen discussed the cooperative’s load controller replacement initiative and reported on underground cable installations and replacement of aging infrastructure. Christensen discussed various projects outlined in the 2025 work plan aimed at improved load capacity and enhancing system reliability. The initiatives call for the replacement of aging infrastructure and the increase of capacity to accommodate load growth and facilitate system load balancing.

His 2024 year in review also included statistics: 25 miles of line installed or replaced, 56 new electric services installed, 25 services revamped, 35 poles replaced, 1469 locates completed, and 115 outages restored. The 115 outages was a decrease from 194 in 2023. 

Christensen’s report concluded by highlighting the importance of utility and customer-owned line location before digging and encouraged members to utilize the Smart Hub app for real-time account and usage information.

Submitted Photos:
Top-Page and Weber.
Page and Trapp.
Page and Soward.
Page and Brown.
Scott Niedert, WVE board and Ron Kottke.
Secretary Joel Adler.
Ashlynn Batchelor.
Dave Page.
Bottom- Jon Christensen.