EMC members gather Friday to elect directorsEMC members gather Friday to elect directors

While local voters are already casting ballots or preparing to vote in the upcoming general election on Nov. 8, another big election is taking place here this week.
The Grady Electric Membership Corporation is hosting its 78th annual membership meeting Friday and the hotly contested campaign for District 2 and District 5 seats on the board of directors will be decided.
This year’s annual meeting will not be held at the EMC headquarters as it has been for many years, but instead will be staged at Family Worship Center, 1760 U.S. Hwy. 84, west of EMC.
Registration and voting begins at 8 a.m. and will conclude at 10 a.m.
Incumbent District 2 board member Caylor Ouzts is being challenged by Ronald Sellars. Incumbent District 5 board member Lamar Strickland is opposed by Earl Stuckey.
Both incumbents were originally nominated as the only candidates to appear on the ballot, but Sellars and Stuckey succeeded in getting on the ballot by obtaining the required number of signatures from EMC members to be nominated by petition.
Ouzts was appointed to the board in Feb. 2014 to fill the unexpired term of the late Donald Cooper. He is the owner and operator of Ouzts Cattle Company.
Sellars retired from the U.S. Postal Service in 1995 after a 30-year career. From 1996 until 2003, he worked as a federal crop insurance adjuster before retiring a second time. Sellars has been a member of the EMC since 1958 and was one of five plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against EMC and its management over some of its business practices and alleged mismanagement, which was settled earlier this year.
Strickland was appointed to the EMC board in Feb. 2012 to fill the unexpired term of the late Lee O. Maxwell III. He then ran unopposed in Oct. 2013 and was elected to a three-year term. Strickland is a farmer and is retired from the Georgia Boll Weevil Eradication Program with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Stuckey has been a member of the EMC since 1972 and he works with his son in their family-owned concrete construction company, on a part-time basis.
The winners in Friday’s election will serve three-year terms on the co-op’s board of directors.
In 2015, John P. Bell Jr., challenged longtime director Dewey Brock Jr., for a seat on the board. Brock edged out Bell 386-320.
EMC members will also be voting on a change to the by-laws of the co-op.
Only active status members will be eligible to register and cast ballots.
The Rob Mills Family of Michigan is scheduled to perform at this year’s annual meeting between 8:30 a.m. and 10 a.m.
Grady EMC President and General Manager Thomas A. (Bo) Rosser Jr., told The Messenger earlier this year the meeting was being moved to Family Worship Center this year to “provide better parking, safety and overall comfort in the case of inclement weather.”