In the 88 years since it was established to bring power to rural residents, the members of Pennyrile Electric had never chosen a woman to serve on the regional utility’s board of directors.
In fact, the membership might have never seen a woman listed as a potential board member. It is not unusual for Pennyrile Electric board members to serve for decades without ever being challenged.
That changed Tuesday afternoon when votes were tallied in a rare contested election. Mindy Golladay Hargrove, the challenger, won over longtime board member Joe E. Rogers by a vote of 524 to 521.
Pennyrile spokesman Brent Gilkey confirmed that Hargrove is the first woman to be elected to a board position.
Rogers, the board member she replaces, had served for 49 years. He was the first African American elected to Pennyrile’s board, Gilkey told Hoptown Chronicle. A Bellsouth retiree, he was the secretary-treasurer for the Pennyrile board.
Hargrove said she was looking at a Kentucky Living magazine a few years ago and saw a photo of the Pennryile board. It struck her that all the members were men. That fact motivated her to run but Hargarove said there are other reasons that her perspective could be beneficial to Pennyrile Electric.
“I feel like they need a different perspective from an actual small business owner,” she said.
Hargrove, 50, owns Bar-B-Que Shack on Pembroke Road and she is part owner of The Crusty Pig in downtown Hopkinsville. A Christian County native who grew up on a Russellville Road farm, she now lives in Trigg County and serves on the Trigg County Board of Education.
The Pennryile Electric board is comprised of eight members — two each from four geographic districts. They are:
- Cumberland District (Cadiz) — Mindy Hargrove and James Futrell
- Western District (Hopkinsville) — Bates Payne Jr. and Duane Moore (assistant secretary-treasurer)
- Central District (Elkton) — George L. Fox (chairman) and James W. Lear
- Eastern District (Russellville) — Bryson Price and Robert E. Allen (vice chairman)
At Tuesday’s 88th annual meeting of Pennyrile Electric, Payne and Allen were re-elected. Neither had opposition.
Board members are elected to a three-year term and meet monthly, said Gilkey. Elections are held on a rotating basis. The upcoming elections are announced every year in the February issue of Kentucky Living, a publication of the 26 electric cooperatives in the state.
Compensation for Pennyrile Electric board members is $900 a month and $275 per diem for attending certain meetings and training, said Gilkey. Many of the training sessions are conducted at the Kentucky Electric Cooperatives in Louisville and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in Arlington, Virginia.
To qualify as a candidate, Hargrove said she needed to collect signatures from at least 1% of the nearly 40,000 Pennyrile members who reside in all or parts of Christian, Trigg, Logan, Todd, Muhlenberg, Lyon, Caldwell, Butler and Simpson counties. She collected about 500 signatures.
Hargrove said she would like to see more members voting.
“I wish more had voted — just to speak their piece whether it was for me or someone else,” she said. “It is kinda disheartening when you look at that number. I turned in over 500 signatures so I had as many signatures as I had votes.”
Electric cooperatives are owned by the members, or customers, and they vote on board members.
Based on the rotating election schedule, seats held by current members will be on the ballot as follows:
- 2026 — Duane Moore, Bryson Price and James Futrell
- 2027 — George Fox and James Lear
- 2028 — Mindy Hargrove, Bates Payne Jr. and Robert E. Allen
A financial statement for Pennyrile Electric in the June edition of Kentucky Living notes that revenue comes from residential (51.4%), commercial (22.9%) and industrial (21%) customers. The rest comes from other sources and from street and outdoor lighting.
Total operating revenue as of Dec. 31 was $157.96 million. Expenses were $149.54 million, which included $104.54 million to purchase power.
At the annual meeting, President and CEO Alan Gates noted that 85% of Pennyrile Electric’s service area now has access to high-speed internet through a collaboration with Hopkinsville Electric System Energynet to bring fiber internet service to the rural areas that Pennyrile serves.
Gates also addressed the impact of recent severe weather.
“Moving forward, we are focusing on areas of improved reliability and hardening the Pennyrile system to help mitigate areas of weakness,” he said. “I would like to thank each member affected during these weather-related events for your patience enduring extended outages and your support of Pennyrile employees working long hours to restore your electric service.”
This story was updated to include information about compensation for board members and the schedule for board member elections.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
