Powder River Energy 80th Annual Meeting wrapup
Powder River Energy Corporation (PRECorp) offered a variety of activities for its 80th Annual Meeting at the Gillette Cam-Plex, Saturday, August 23.
The celebratory event featured a free evening concert by Kaycee native Ned LeDoux, plus a wellness fair, a power plant tour, electrical safety demonstration, updates from cooperative officers, a free steak dinner and door prizes. Attendees took home a variety of gifts including a 2026 PRECorp calendar, hats, history books, and special welcome bags from the Gillette Visitors Bureau.
Cooperative members cast ballots for three director seats, re-electing Gerry Geis (Campbell County), Jim Purdy (Johnson County), and Ty Miller (Weston County). The minimum quorum requirement of 100 members attending in-person was exceeded, and 269 votes were cast in-person or by mail.
Special guests included Wyoming Rural Electric Association (WREA) Executive Director Shawn Taylor, Basin Electric VP of Member Services Chris Baumgartner and Basin VP of Strategy & Communications Andy Buntrock.
The primary message of the day is an anticipated power cost increase being passed down from Basin Electric to its member cooperatives. PRECorp CEO Brian Mills said the numbers are not finalized yet, but could be as high as 10% in 2026, and another 10% in 2027.
Mills emphasized the rate increase is more about the realities of local cooperatives controlling where their power comes from. In order to control the power generation, new facilities must be built to meet increasing demand, follow rules of the regional power grid, and satisfy financial lenders.
“The cost of a kilowatt for Basin (when Dry Fork Station was built)...was $800. To make that electron today is about $2,800. That’s creating some tension, risk tolerance, and member needs.”
Mills said that without the large family of cooperatives under the Basin umbrella, these costs would be much higher and likely without local input in the decisions.
“Instead of an 18% increase, we asked them (Basin) to create a more modest, stepped approach,” Mills said. “Basin came back with ‘We’ll start with 9 or 10 percent.’”
Mills also said that a threat to cooperative independence in Wyoming is third-party generation proposals where a large power user generates its own electricity, but offers to sell the excess to neighboring users. This could threaten the territories of electric cooperatives.
PRECorp Board Secretary-Treasurer Gerry Geis outlined the highlights of the annual financials of the cooperative. “The employees and the board work hard to keep the coop financially stable,” Geis said. “We are one of the top coops in the nation and we have been for a long time.”
Board President Jim Purdy highlighted the changes on many fronts since the last annual meeting only 12 months ago. “We know this journey since 1945 has not been an easy one. PRECorp doesn’t sit back and wait for things to happen. We step up to meet coming challenges and seize opportunities with a transparent and thoughtful approach,” Purdy said. “Part of this approach is to own the troubling events that happen around us. We don’t blame ‘they’ or ‘them’ for what is happening to us. Instead we take an ‘I’ and ‘We’ approach to controlling our destiny, implementing solutions, and being an inspiring example to others in the energy industry. We thank all of those who came before us these past 80 years and celebrate the round number of 80 today.”
To close out the meeting, PRECorp Director Paul Baker presented the Earl Christensen Award to Wyoming State Senator Eric Barlow for his support of the cooperative model when it comes to state legislation. Barlow said that Earl and Mae Christensen were “gems of humanity” who served their community their whole lives. “How do we make lives better? Sometimes the discussions are difficult and challenging... but we are doing it so the next generation has the same opportunities that we have,” Barlow said.
The 81st Annual Meeting will be held Saturday, August 22, 2026, in Buffalo.