There was one dollar in the cooperative’s bank account. The first meeting of the corporation and directors of Slash Pine EMC was held in the main court room at the court house in the town of Homerville, Georgia at 3 p.m., February 10, 1940. The first original Charter was granted on December 1, 1940. The first bill paid was to The Clinch County News in the amount of $44 for legal advertising for the incorporation of Slash Pine Electric Membership Corporation. The nine men had each paid a five dollar membership fee. The original petition of incorporation was filed in Clinch County, Georgia on December 28, 1939. But the courage of nine men who would become Slash Pine EMC’s first Board of Directors believed in their dream of a better way of life for themselves and their neighbors. The issue of acquiring the proper right of way for the construction of the electric lines through forest lands from which people depended on for the livelihood was also a contributing factor for failure. The main obstacle to Slash Pine’s success was too many miles of electric line for too few meters. The “Doubting Thomas’s”, Bankers, REA Officials and Politicians all agreed that Slash Pine EMC was just a dream that could never become reality. There was little cash money in the area, and many of the first memberships were paid for in farm produce. Our territory consisted of sparsely populated areas of deep South Georgia, including small family farms and pine trees. In the beginning, the service area was that area not wanted or needed by other rural electric cooperatives or private investment power utilities.

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