A few months ago, we told you about the six local high school students who attended the Illinois Electric and Telephone Cooperatives Youth Day in Springfield, Illinois. In conjunction with that event, two of those area students were chosen to attend the NRECA Electric Cooperative Youth Tour in Washington, D.C. Those students, South Central High School's Boston Hails and Highland High School's Kylie Ketcham, joined host Nathan Grimm to discuss the trip and their big takeaways from the whirlwind few days in the nation's capital.

Cooperatives like Southwestern Electric are guided by seven cooperative principles. That doesn't mean such pillars are limited to cooperatives, though. In this month's episode, we explore the seventh cooperative principle, concern for community, through the lens of Southwestern Electric's partnership with Anderson Healthcare at the system's new Goshen Campus development.

When an outage occurs, it takes a village — our Southwestern Electric village, specifically — to get your lights back on. Southwestern Chief Operating Officer Marvin Ayala joins the podcast to detail all the moving parts that set in motion when an outage strikes, and how each of them contributes to the larger goal of restoring power as quick and safely as possible.

Southwestern Electric Cooperative recently sponsored six local high school students' participation in a Youth Day event in Springfield, Illinois. Hear more about the day — and even hear parts of the day itself, by way of audio clips from the event — in this month's episode.

DeMoulin Brothers and Company has a unique history rooted in its early manufacturing of some of the most bizarre and fascinating lodge initiation paraphernalia and regalia in the country. Equally fascinating is the DeMoulin Museum, which tells the history of the Greenville-based factory. In this episode, museum curator John Goldsmith talks about the museum's origins, its aim and how Southwestern Electric has contributed to its success through the Operation Round Up program.

For better or worse, technology has become a nearly indispensible part of our day to day lives. In this episode of the podcast, host Nathan Grimm details all the ways in which the cooperative utilizes technology to keep Southwestern Electric members informed and empowered with their electric service.

There are a lot of cool things happening in our own Southwestern Electric backyard, and Elaine McNamara is the person in the know. The director of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce and Greenville University SMART Center joins the show to discuss the origins of the SMART Center renovation, new life being breathed into the city's downtown and what's next for Greenville.

December is a time to look back at the year that was, while also looking ahead to the year to come. Media Specialist Nathan Grimm does a bit of both in this year-end wrap-up episode.

It's cliche, but so are the holidays. So, with Thanksgiving on the horizon, the November episode asks a simple question: Why are you thankful to work at an electric cooperative?

The way we communicate — as a cooperative to our members, and simply as humans to each other — has perhaps never been more important. SWECI Vice President of Communications Joe Richardson joins the podcast to talk about his job, the ways he's seen it change and how he approaches communicating complex subjects to our membership, among other topics.