Your issues of Cooperative Living may have more value than you realize
September 2026
by Jack Cooksey, Staff Writer
Having worked in newspapers and magazines since the mid-1990s, I’ve known editors who feel the same way I do about reader feedback: I’d rather hear constructive criticism than a person who’s calling just to shower praise.
Compliments are nice, but a reader with a question, concern or curiosity can teach me something new about our audience. I relish those conversations. And we here at the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives — the team that produces Cooperative Living each month — always want to know how we can better serve you, our readers. Together with your local electric cooperative, we serve the member-owners of our co-ops.
Although years of experience guide editorial instincts, it’s always better to hear directly from the audience. Nothing beats knowing exactly what you think about our content.
So, I was happy to speak with a longtime reader who called recently asking to cancel his subscription to Cooperative Living.
He said he had enjoyed the magazine for years, but with prices rising everywhere, something in his budget had to give. “Money is money,” he said. His subscription seemed to be one expense he could cut.
As I explained to him, though, the magazine that cooperative members see in their mailboxes 10 times a year is a benefit of co-op membership, not a line item on their electric bill. It’s delivered to members’ homes for less than the cost of a first-class stamp, and it comes with an essential purpose: to keep you connected to your electric cooperative because you are a member-owner in that business.
The magazine is not a consumer publication with a subscription fee. It’s part of our core values, embodying our commitment to keeping members informed about their cooperative, its business and the communities it serves.
The greater value of Cooperative Living goes beyond the cost of printing and mailing it to you. It’s more than a collection of stories and photos. It ties you to communities across Virginia, Maryland and Delaware through 16 cooperatives serving more than 2 million member-owners. Many of these communities share the same values and way of life as your own.
At its heart, this magazine exists to strengthen those bonds of community across co-op territories. It brings you closer to people you can call neighbors, people with whom you share ownership of your electric cooperative. It’s a meeting space for us all.
To continue the 80-year legacy of this vital communications channel, we invite you to tell us what you enjoy in our pages, what you’d like to see more of and how we can improve.
Please be in touch and know that we are eager to hear your feedback. You can trust we’ll take it to heart and try our best to bring it to these pages.
Contact Managing Editor Jack Cooksey at [email protected] or 804-297-3426.
