District 5
Sidney Lord represents District 5, most of which is located southwest of Live Oak between State Road 51 and Highway 129 in Suwannee County. Lord has served on the Suwanne Valley Electric Cooperative (SVEC) board since 1999. He and his wife, Pat, live in Suwannee County and have 2 grown children and 8 grandchildren.
Q: What do you like most about living in the Suwannee Valley?
I like everything. I really don’t know what to say most. I’ve been here for 79 years, so I should be used to it by now.
Q: What line of work are you in?
I’m a farmer. I used to grow corn and watermelons. Now I grow tobacco, some pine trees and raise commercial beef cattle.
Q: What do you like to do outside of work?
I spend a lot of time at my church and with my grandchildren. I’ve also been on the Suwannee County Farm Bureau board for even longer than I’ve been on the SVEC board.
Q: What made you want to serve on the SVEC board?
People encouraged me to serve on the SVEC board because I had experience from being very involved on other boards.
Q: What do you enjoy most about serving on the board?
The main thing is that I get to hear from members, and 99% of them tell me what a good job we’re doing. That means a lot to me because my family goes way back with the cooperative. My daddy helped build the power line that came to our house when I was 2 years old. I think people in rural areas are still happy to have electricity. They don’t take it for granted.
Q: What’s the most important impact SVEC has on its community?
I think providing reliable and affordable power is really the biggest thing. SVEC has kept rates affordable even though there are areas with few people per mile. We have also done some good planning to keep our right of way cleared, so we don’t have as many outages as you might expect in rural Sidney areas.