Callaway Electric Cooperative is a member-owned cooperative. Because it is a business owned by a specific group of people (not the public), it is a  private enterprise. The people who use its services must be members of the cooperative.  As a cooperative, it operates on a non-profit basis. All revenues, over and above the cost of doing business for a year, are returned to the membership under a patronage refund plan which we call Capital Credits.  

The first electric cooperatives were organized in the 1930's.  At that time,  very few people living outside the cities and towns had electricity. In most instances,  the established investor-owned power and light companies would not build the lines in rural areas.  The federal government set up an agency, the Rural Electrification Administration (now the Rural Utilities Services or RUS),  to lend money to build lines outside the towns and cities.  The rural people banded together to form cooperatives, and borrowed money from the REA to construct the power lines. One by one, over 1,000 electric cooperatives were formed to energize rural America.  In 1936, Callaway Electric Cooperative was organized to serve members in Callaway and the southern portion of Montgomery Counties.