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EDITOR’S DESK
The Power of Focus
Market turmoil, tariffs and talk of trade wars. Shifting alliances and American isolationism. Executive orders transforming American society.
No, these aren’t today’s headlines. This is 1930s America. The country is still reeling from the Wall Street crash of 1929. Tariffs — implemented to protect farmers — have only worsened the Great Depression. Fresh from the Great War, the United States turns its attention inward, focusing on its own domestic troubles. Amid these turbulent times, President Franklin Roosevelt issues a series of executive orders to help put the country back on track.
Today’s rural electric cooperatives represent a living legacy from that era. Ninety years ago this month, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7037, establishing the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) — part of his sweeping New Deal effort to restore hope and rebuild the economy.
At the time, 90% of rural homes lacked electricity. The REA provided funding for communities to establish cooperatives and bring life-changing electricity to the American countryside. Today, nearly 900 electric cooperatives serve more than 42 million people across 56% of the American landscape. The 14 electric cooperatives in Pennsylvania and New Jersey reach more than 600,000 rural residents.
Built, owned and governed by those they serve, these co-ops remain integral to their communities, providing not only electricity but also powering local economies. Likewise, REA’s legacy lives on through the Rural Utilities Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Initiatives like the USDA’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program continue to invest in rural communities. Like the original programs that helped spur the development of rural electric cooperatives, New ERA is helping today’s co-ops address energy needs, modernize grids, and make energy more affordable and accessible.
Recently, Allegheny Electric Cooperative, Inc., the power provider for Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s cooperatives, was awarded approximately $20 million in New ERA funding. That funding will go toward a power-purchase agreement, helping stabilize costs for cooperative consumers in the region.
This effort was driven by your local cooperative leadership, and it reflects the same goals of the very first cooperatives established through the REA. It’s a continuous effort to find solutions for rural communities. Cooperatives were born out of this effort, and that legacy lives on.
PETER A. FITZGERALD
EDITOR
DAWN OF A NEW ERA
Consumer feedback sought on grant project
Allegheny Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Allegheny), the wholesale energy provider for rural electric cooperatives in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, is expanding its energy portfolio with a grant of up to $20.5 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The funding would translate into direct savings for consumer-members and allow Allegheny to reduce pollution and carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 100,000 tons annually. Visit prea.com/community-benefit-plan to learn how the funding will improve energy reliability and affordability for rural Pennsylvanians and to offer feedback.
SLOW AND STEADY
Turtle inching closer to becoming state reptile
The state House Game and Fisheries Committee approved a bill that would designate the eastern box turtle as the Commonwealth’s official state reptile. The legislation, sponsored by state Rep. Perry Stambaugh (R-Perry), now moves to the House of Representatives for consideration.
Stambaugh, the former editor of Penn Lines, told the committee the idea came to him while visiting with first-graders at Juniata Elementary School in Mifflintown. When questioned why the Keystone state doesn’t have a state reptile, Stambaugh asked students what they thought it should be. One student recommended “one of those yellow turtles we see on the roads all summer long.”
That “yellow turtle” is the eastern box turtle, which can live to be more than 100 years old. Habitat loss, however, has made the turtle an at-risk species.
Stambaugh believes designating the turtle as the state reptile will help conserve it as well as other turtles, snakes and lizards.
TURTLE TIME?: A bill is making its way through the General Assembly that would designate the eastern box turtle as the official state reptile. State Rep. Perry Stambaugh, the former editor of Penn Lines, proposed the measure after a visit with first-graders at Juniata Elementary School in Mifflintown.
GOING BATTY
Pennsylvania company hits home run
Victus Sports of King of Prussia has become the talk of the diamond after New York Yankees sluggers pounded nine home runs in an early spring game using the company’s unusually shaped bat.
The design features an end that resembles a bowling pin as much as a torpedo.
Victus isn’t the only company manufacturing bats with a bulge, but they are among the first to sell them online after the Yankees made them an overnight sensation. Calls and orders have been coming into the company’s base near Philadelphia ever since. The company made only a dozen or so of the bats in 2024, but orders reached into the hundreds per week early in this season.
The bat’s odd shape has little to no effect on how it is made, and the cost is similar to a standard bat, with a sticker price around $200. The torpedo bat complies with all Major League Baseball bat rules.
OH, DEAR!
Harvest numbers up in latest hunting season
The Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) reports hunters harvested about 11% more deer in the 2024-2025 hunting season than they did the year before. An estimated 476,880 deer were taken — 175,280 of them antlered and 301,600 antlerless.
The uptick was partly by design, PGC Deer and Elk Section Supervisor David Stainbrook said, noting the objective was to reduce deer numbers in areas impacted by chronic wasting disease, forest damage and population increases. Beyond that, he said, many variables can impact harvest totals from one year to the next.
“We caution reading too much into annual variation in harvest,” he said. “The trends in data are what give a truer picture of what’s going on.”
Across the state, about 28% of hunters took an antlered deer. That’s the highest success rate since at least the late 1980s. And, as has become the norm since the implementation of antler point restrictions, most of those bucks were older ones. Two of every three were at least 2.5 years old. That’s a huge change from decades ago, when most of the harvest was made up of 1.5-year-old deer.
The PGC’s harvest estimates are calculated using antlered and antlerless harvest reports submitted by hunters in combination with data from processors across the state.
PLANT PARTNERSHIP
Center launches to support growing industries
Pennsylvania’s plant industries are set to thrive with the launch of the Center for Plant Excellence, an initiative aimed at fostering innovation and growth.
Located at the Penn State Southeast Research Center in Lancaster County, the center will support industries ranging from horticulture and hardwoods to forest products, ornamental plants, fruit and nut trees, hemp, hops, grapes, and other specialty food crops.
These industries contribute approximately $52.7 billion annually to the state’s economy, more than any other agricultural sector, and the center is expected to serve as a hub for research, development, and collaboration.
“Farming isn’t something that you do alone,” Interim Director Miranda Harple said. “They’re not just individual businesses; they’re a system where the success depends on our connection and our collaboration and our shared knowledge.”
The Center was launched in partnership with Penn State. The General Assembly approved $500,000 over the past two fiscal years to get the center up and running. Another $250,000 is proposed for the upcoming fiscal year.
CONTEST TIME!
Help us celebrate Penn Lines’ 60th anniversary
Penn Lines has a big birthday coming up, and we want you to be a part of our 60th anniversary celebration. Before the confetti flies in 2026, though, we’re kicking off a handful of photo contests this year; enter one — or all three.
CONTEST NO. 1 – LONGEST-LIVED PENN LINES! If you have an oldie but a goodie around the house, take a photo of it with you. Please make sure the publication date is visible.
CONTEST NO. 2 – MOST WELL-TRAVELED PENN LINES! We'll be honest: We like it when we get to go to some place nice. Take your favorite issue of Penn Lines to some place special in your community and take a photo of yourself with it.
CONTEST NO. 3 – A DATE WITH PENN LINES! We’ll be honest: We like it when we get to go to some place nice. Take your favorite issue of Penn Lines to some place special in your community and take a photo of yourself with the magazine.
FOR ALL CONTESTS, WE WILL NEED: your name, address, daytime telephone number, the month and year of the magazine, and the name of the cooperative that serves your home, business, or seasonal residence.
PRIZES: $50 gift card; the photo will also be featured in Penn Lines in 2026
DEADLINE: Friday, Oct. 31
SEND ENTRIES TO: PennLines@prea.com (put “60 Years of Penn Lines” in the subject line) or Penn Lines Editor/60 YEARS OF PENN LINES, P.O. Box 1266, Harrisburg, PA 17108-1266.
TIMELINES
A decade ago, Penn Lines reported on the near-extinction of the American chestnut from blight in the past century and efforts to revive the historic species in eastern North America. The work of The American Chestnut Foundation and its chapter representing Pennsylvania and New Jersey continues today with the development of a disease-tolerant and genetically diverse population of trees that are adaptable to a broad and changing climate. Learn more at patacf.org.
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