77th Annual Meeting of the Members

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Each year in March or April, LEC holds the Annual Meeting of the Members. This event is an opportunity for the members to learn more about their cooperative. They also transact any business to come before the membership.

As a member of LEC, you have the right to get involved with your cooperative. The main vehicle for doing this is electing the Board of Trustees. These nine fellow 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 will be mailed to all Lincoln Electric members with their official Notice of Meeting mid-March. Completed mail-in ballots must be completed and submitted as noted on the ballots.

Trustee seats currently filled by District 6 (Upper) Trustees Mike Garner, Joel Graves, and Ethel White are up election in 2024. Members wishing to become a trustee nominee must submit a trustee nomination petition, which will become available in November 2023. 

At the meeting, LEC's General Manager also gives an update on cooperative happenings and our auditor gives a financial presentation for the previous calendar year.

The 77th Annual Meeting of the Members will be held on Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Eureka, Montana.

76th Annual Meeting of the Members a Success

Lincoln Electric Cooperative's 76th Annual Meeting of the Members was held at the Lincoln County High School on Saturday, April 1, 2023. Two percent of the membership, or 103 members, were needed to achieve a quorum. We had 264 memberships register for the event. The meeting began at 9:00 a.m. and was adjourned at 10:27 a.m.

Our auditor, Brandon Tregellas of Decoria, Blair and Teague, P.S., gave a brief financial update based on Lincoln Electric's 2022 audit. He reported that your cooperative is in great financial standing.

Your Lincoln Electric board approved the retirement of capital credits for the 43rd consecutive year. In 2023, nearly half a million dollars in capital credits will be retired. Overall, we've returned almost $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 2023 trustee election. There were three trustee seats up for election in 2023. Rick Peterson and Marianne Roose were the incumbents for District 6 - Upper, and Myra Appel was the incumbent for District 7 - Lower.

There were two nominations received for the expiring seats in District 6 from incumbents Rick Peterson and Marianne Roose. There was one nomination received from incumbent Myra Appel for the expiring seat in District 7. Mail-in ballots were mailed to all members early in March, and were due back to Lincoln Electric by March 27, 2023. The returned ballots were counted by a volunteer committee of four Lincoln Electric members. A voting quorum of 103 was required to elect trustees. We received 326 valid mail-in ballots.

The results for District 6 were 285 votes for Rick Peterson and 265 votes for Marianne Roose. The District 7 result was 281 votes for Myra Appel. All incumbents were re-elected via mail-in ballot.

The grand prize of free electricity for a year was won by Chapel of Praise. The prize will be awarded as a bill credit of up to $145 per month for the next 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 - Kristin and Martin Battle

$150 - Patrick and Angela Price

$100 - Esther Brandt