For our members
Annual Meeting
The 78th Annual Meeting of the members will be held on Saturday, April 12, 2025, at the Lincoln County High School in Eureka, Montana. This event is an opportunity for our members to learn more about their cooperative. They also transact any business to come before the membership.
At the meeting, results of the trustee election are announced. Members are also given an update on cooperative happenings and financials.
Trustee Election
As a member of Lincoln Electric, you have the right to get involved in your cooperative. One of the main ways to get involved is electing fellow members to your Board of Trustees. These nine members meet once a month to review cooperative policies, financials, and evaluate the direction of the cooperative.
Trustees are elected each year by Lincoln Electric members by mail-in ballot. Ballots are mailed to all Lincoln Electric members with their official Notice of Meeting. Your mail-in ballot must be completed and submitted as noted on the ballot.
Trustee nomination petitions are available October through December. You can learn more about your Board of Trustees here.
77th Annual Meeting
2024 Meeting Recap
Lincoln Electric Cooperative’s 77th Annual Meeting of the Members was held at Lincoln County High School on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Two percent of the membership, or 105 members, was needed to achieve a quorum. We had 283 memberships registered at the event. The meeting began at 9:00 a.m. and was adjourned at 10:03 a.m.
Our auditor, Brandon Tregellas of Decoria, Blair and Teague, P.S., gave a brief financial update based on Lincoln Electric’s 2023 audit. He reported that cooperative is in great financial standing.
Your Lincoln Electric board approved the retirement of capital credits for the 44th consecutive year. In 2024, over $400,000 will be retired to members and former members. Overall, we’ve returned more than $14 million to our members in the form of capital credits, landing Lincoln Electric near the top cooperatives in the country for capital credit retirements.
Mark Hash of O’Brien, Hash, & Biby, Lincoln Electric’s legal counsel and meeting parliamentarian, presented the results of the 2024 trustee and By-Laws amendments election. There were three trustee seats up for election in 2024.
There were four nominations received for the three expiring seats in District 6 – Upper from incumbents Joel Graves and Rodney Kane, as well as from David Purdy and Barry Roose. Mail-in ballots were mailed to all members in March, and were due back to Lincoln Electric by April 15, 2024. The returned ballots were counted by a volunteer committee of six Lincoln Electric members. A voting quorum of 105 was required to elect trustees. We received 292 valid mail-in ballots.
The results for District 6 were 248 votes for Joel Graves, 248 for David Purdy, 183 for Rodney Kane, and 134 for Barry Roose. Via mail-in ballot, incumbents Joel Graves and Rodney Kane were re-elected, and new nominee David Purdy was elected.
The grand prize of free electricity for a year was won by Goldie Calvert. The prize will be awarded as a bill credit of up to $145 per month for 12 months. The grand prize amount is based on the average residential bill from the previous year.
Mail-in ballot drawings
Congratulations to the winners of the mail-in ballot drawings! Thank you for voting.
- $250 – Brent Roose
- $150 – Greg & Janet Schwegel
- $100 – James & Jennifer Bartlett