GreyStone Power Corporation is the 2014 recipient of the Edgar F. Chesnutt Award for Best Total Communication Program, the highest honor bestowed by the Spotlight on Excellence Awards program of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). GreyStone was recognized during the opening session of CONNECT ’14, a national communication, marketing and member services conference attended by co-op professionals from 43 states and sponsored by NRECA and Touchstone Energy® Cooperatives.
GreyStone Power is a member-owned cooperative that provides electricity and other services to more than 107,400 members in portions of eight counties west of Atlanta. GreyStone won the award for its 2013 Advertising Campaign that the competition’s judges called “well planned, documented, creative and informative.”
NRECA Senior Vice President Jim Bausell presented the award to Manager of Public Relations and Communications Vicki Harshbarger and GreyStone’s communications team. Led by Harshbarger, the team includes Public Relations and Communications Coordinator Ashley Kramer, Public and Member Relations Coordinator Amanda Busby and Public Relations Administrative Assistant Trisha McBee. GreyStone’s Vice President of Corporate & External Affairs Tim Williams oversees the team and was also on hand to accept the award, along with Residential Energy Services Manager Rudy Echols, representing the co-op’s Stakeholder Messaging Team, which collaborated closely with Communications to create the successful campaign.
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Edgar F. Chesnutt, for whom the award is named, was manager of corporate communications with Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, Little Rock, from 1961 until his death in 1987.
GreyStone also won a Gold Award in the Best Wild Card category for a yearbook and certificate created for the co-op’s Service Awards. The project was a collaboration of the communications team and Human Resources Assistant Lanette Toler.
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GreyStone also earned a Silver Award in the Best Annual Report to Members category for “2012 Annual Report: Champions For You,” as well as a Silver Award in the Best Video Production category for “Employees of GreyStone Power,” a video created by Jacques Vincilione.
The annual Spotlight awards recognize top-rated communications and marketing efforts by electric cooperatives and related organizations. Electric cooperative communicators and marketing professionals submitted 689 entries in the Spotlight on Excellence competition, now in its 26th year.
The Council of Rural Electric Communicators oversees the Spotlight on Excellence program, which seeks to advance the recognition, education, and professionalism of electric cooperative communicators and their affiliated organizations. It is a volunteer association working on behalf of more than 4,000 electric cooperative communicators across the United States.
NRECA, the service organization representing the national interests of cooperative electric utilities, coordinates the Council’s activities. The Spotlight Celebration at CONNECT ’14 also received support from Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange, Lenexa, Kansas, and the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, Herndon, Va.
GreyStone Power serves members in portions of eight counties, including Paulding, Douglas, Fulton, Cobb, Carroll, Bartow, Fayette and Coweta counties. Learn more at www.greystonepower.com.
