By Terry Mazzone, CCC, Director of Communications, Member and Community Relations, Lorain-Medina Rural Electric Cooperative and North Central Electric Cooperative

Three newcomers will join two incumbents on the CCC Board of Directors following the annual spring online election. The 12-member board will convene in June with an organizational meeting to officially kick-off their 2015-16 year.

Elected to two-year terms were incumbents Terry Mazzone and Anna Politano along with newcomers April Lollar, Casey Hollins and Nell Withers McCauley. There were 11 CCC candidates seeking election.

Terry Mazzone will begin his third and final two-year term. He is the Director of Communications, Member and Community Relations for Lorain-Medina Rural Electric Cooperative and North Central Electric Cooperative. He has been with the two northern Ohio cooperatives since 1992. He is currently serving as the CCC board vice-chairman and chairs the Program and Planning Committee.

Anna Politano, editor of the Oklahoma Living statewide publication, will begin her second two-year term. She is currently serving as the board’s marketing and communications committee chairman, plus is the e-media committee chairman for the Statewide Editors Association.

April Lollar joined Coast Electric Cooperative in Mississippi in May 2005, just three months before Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. She is Coast’s media services executive. In addition to earning her C’s, she also earned her accreditation in Public Relations in 2008.

Nell Withers McCauley is the communications advisor for Southeastern Data Corporation in Atlanta, Ga. She has been active in the cooperative world 27 years, which includes a 24-year association with the CCC program. She has served a CCC peer advisor and twice served on the Council of Rural Electric Communicators, including two terms as its president.

Casey Hollins, communications specialist of Rappahannock Electric Cooperative in Virginia had to win a run-off election to gain her seat on the CCC board. She’s been with Rappahannock since 2008 and was part of the communications team that earned Edgar F. Chesnutt Award for Best Total Communications Program in 2013.

Each year five of the 10 elected board seats are contested. The five newly elected board members will join elected board members Mary Kate Pedigo, communications specialist, Sam Houston Electric Cooperative, Livingston, TX; Erin Campbell, communications manager, Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives in Des Moines; Joe Sikes, communications specialist, Canoochee EMC, Reidsville, GA; Susan Simmons, communications manager, Blue Ridge EMC, Lenoir, NC; and Linda Nyberg, communications and marketing specialist, Sangre de Cristo Electric Association, Buena Vista, CO. Rounding out the board are Michael Lynch, digital editor with NRECA, and CREC representative Laura Hengstenberg, (manager of administration and communication, Crawford Electric Cooperative, Bourbon, MO.) The Cooperative Finance Corporation also has a seat on the board but the seat remains vacant.

There has been some shuffling of seats on the CCC board the past two years. Sikes was appointed to fill a vacancy in 2014. When Rick Petty resigned last year after getting appointed President of Logan Power Electric Cooperative, Sikes officially resigned from his CCC position and was re-appointed to fill the final year of Petty’s term.

A total of 129 CCCers cast ballots, or about 60 percent of the 214 active CCCs in the program. Interestingly, 76 voted on the first day of the two-week voting period.