NCEC, Inc - NCEC History

                                       In the early 1920s farm leaders began pressing for rural electrification. If the
                                       existing investor-owned power companies wouldn't help the farmers, the
                                       farmers would help themselves. They began to organize their own electric
                                       cooperatives. Farmers in Navarro County started to work in 1936 to
                                       organize a cooperative to serve their needs. The first recorded meeting of
                                       the incorporators and directors of the Navarro County Electric Cooperative,
                                       Inc. was held in Beauford Jester's office in the Jester Building in the city of
                                       Corsicana, Tx, Navarro County at 2:30 pm on the 26th day of November
                                       1937.

                                       The first official meeting consisted of election of officers and board
                                       members. The board members present at this meeting were E. P. Estes,
                                       elected president, L. I. Griffin, elected secretary, and the remaining board
                                       members were William J. Bain, E. B. Dawson, Earl M. Dawson, Burney
Moore, and Robert P. Garret. The Chairman, E. P. Estes, reported at this meeting that the original copy
of the Articles of Incorporation were filed on November 19th, 1937 in the office of the Secretary of State,
and that under the date of November 19th, 1937, the Secretary of State had issued a Certificate of
Incorporation to the incorporators. View the NCEC Bylaws.

Beauford H. Jester was appointed by the board to be counsel of the new Corporation.

The Cooperative was organized to be a private, non-profit enterprise, locally owned and managed, and
incorporated under state law, to be controlled by the members it serves, with each member having one
vote in the affairs of the Cooperative. The cooperative membership elects a director for a designated area
to be their representative on the board.

The first step after the organization was to secure funds to build electric distribution lines in the rural
areas. The funds were provided under the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, which established the Rural
Electrification Administration (REA) as a lending agency for the federal government. The first request for
funds was $100,000 to build 92 miles of distribution line in Navarro and Hill counties.

The Cooperative's first office was in the Jester Building on West 5th Avenue in Corsicana. The first
building was at 214 N. Main Street. Later, the Cooperative built a new office-warehouse facility at 319
West 7th in 1950. In 1975, the Cooperative moved to its present location on west Highway 22 on the
western edge of Corsicana. From this humble beginning the Cooperative has grown to over 2700 miles of
line (in 2005) serving over 13,000 meters in Navarro, Hill, Ellis, Freestone, and Limestone counties.

                       The managers of the Cooperative have been:

Clyde Kimes
Ben Templeton
Osie Cauble
Raymond Hampel, Jr.
Joe Felder
Max Graham
Billy Gillespie
Billy Jones

1937-1941
1941-1946
1946-1960
1960-1975
1975-1979
1979-1984
1985-2003
2003-Present

HISTORY OF NAVARRO COUNTY ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE

NCEC History