Brittany and Austin Steen had a vision for the farm life they wanted.

Hiccup Farm came by its name honestly.

When Austin and Brittany Steen purchased a fixer-upper home with 35 acres of pastureland in the Spring Hill community south of Troy, they knew they had their work cut out for them.

They spent about eight months on repairs and renovations. It seemed the more they did, the more new problems they uncovered. One day, a contractor friend working on repairs with them casually commented about how they had experienced “hiccup after hiccup.”

The name stuck.

“It was kind of a diamond in the rough,” Austin says. “I don’t think I actually saw it listed. I think I drove by and saw a real estate sign laying on the ground. It took a unique buyer for sure.”

Brittany admits she struggled initially to see beyond the house’s disrepair, abandoned chicken houses and barns. The floor in the home was a concrete slab. There were no appliances. Brittany’s father fashioned a sink for them to use. Two of the chicken houses had burned at some point. The livestock barn was filled with junk. Even the land required work. Fencing had to be added to the property if the Steens wanted to raise livestock.

“He had a vision for it, and it took a long time for me to get on board,” Brittany says. “I heard what he was saying. I heard his heart and the desire, and we did agree. We both wanted the same thing, but I had a hard time seeing how it would happen here.”

Planting the seeds

They persevered and moved onto the farm in 2021. They started with broiler chickens, and in 2023, they got their first flock of 16 Katahdin sheep, a hair sheep that naturally sheds its coat in the spring and is primarily raised for meat. Today, Hiccup Farm has around 50 ewes and finished another lambing season in March.

Austin and Brittany grew up in small communities, hearing stories from their parents and grandparents about growing up on farms. They both attended Troy University and married in 2017, buying a home in a Troy subdivision.

With the arrival of their first child, they became more focused on knowing where the food they fed their family comes from and how it is raised, whether produce or meat.

Raising sheep is not necessarily what the Steens thought they would end up doing. Based on their research, sheep seemed less intimidating than starting out with cattle.

They follow practices known as regenerative farming, which includes using few chemicals on the land and the animals. They also rotate their livestock regularly so no area of the pasture is overgrazed. Because he continues working as an accountant and teaches an accounting class at Troy University, Austin appreciates the low input and sustainability of regenerative farming, but the couple say there’s more to it for them.

“Once we got out here and really started getting our feet wet and farming, we started learning more and more about it — just about how God designed the Earth to renew itself and the nutrients poured into the soil in order to feed the grass, which feeds our animals, which feeds us,” Brittany says. “It’s just that whole circle.”

A growing business

Hiccup Farm has done most of its business by word of mouth and through Facebook, but it now sells its meat products at Troy’s Terra Cotta Garden Center, where a refrigerated case features lamb, beef and chicken. The farm built a following of repeat customers in the few years since starting business.

Today, Hiccup Farm includes both sheep and cattle. Processing the meat, the Steens say, has been the biggest challenge. Because they sell retail, meat has to be processed at a USDA-certified facility, and there isn’t one in Pike County. Dothan is the closest place for beef processors, but the Steens currently have their lamb processed nearly two hours away in Colquitt, Georgia. They’ve used six different lamb processors since starting up. Because of restrictions and risk of cross-contamination, many processors just don’t work with lamb, the Steens say.

What produce the Steens grow feeds their family, which now includes 5-year-old Mary Ella, 3-year-old Calvin and 1-year-old Darby, along with a team of farm dogs featuring a border collie, a spaniel, a Great Pyrenees and an Anatolian shepherd to help watch over the flock and herd.

And just as Austin and Brittany envisioned, their children excitedly run around the property, picking wildflowers and following their parents on farm tasks. Austin has been actively working to restore native plant species on the land, and one of Mary Ella’s favorite things is to go out and find the native flowers as they start to bloom.
When Brittany looks back at where they started, it’s with fondness despite the challenges.

“The hiccups, they were obstacles on our journey to getting to where we are now, but they didn’t stop us,” she says. “That just is a testament, I think, to the Lord’s hand in that. He will help you through it and he’ll sustain you even when there are hiccups.”

Who likes change?

If you were to ask this question to a majority of people, they would likely say, "I am for change, if it makes everything better." But when you want to change something, their true colors will surface.

For example, if the music director of a traditional Southern Baptist church replaced the Sunday church hymns with modern praise music without asking anybody, that change would not go over very well, trust me.

There is a saying often attributed to Christian author C.S. Lewis: "Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when we look back, everything is different?"

Electric cooperatives are not protected from the winds of change. There are around 900 electric cooperatives across the U.S. Within the next five years, over 40% of the CEOs of those cooperatives will be eligible for retirement. I am in that stat. This change in leadership is concerning as the electric industry faces so many challenges.

News channels report about the artificial intelligence revolution, stating the U.S. must win this AI race with China. There is a basic electric demand issue that needs to be addressed in the near future. The data centers that power AI will absorb a great amount of the electric demand capacity, and there are questions on who is going to pay for the generation needs that come with AI expansion.

With the normal residential and commercial growth within electric utilities, that question is easily answered. Those members pay for that growth. But AI growth may be different. Politicians are diving into the issue. They want data centers to pay for all the electric demand, generation and transmission costs up front or build their own generation and transmission assets.

I have not formed an opinion on data center companies being in the electric business, but I can see opportunities for us. Over the past few years, I have written in my monthly columns about various issues facing the cooperative world. We navigated the waters of a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, electric steel shortages, supply chain delays, labor shortages and the high cost of building electric generation plants and transmission and distribution lines.

While traveling through these rough and deep waters, the cooperative has maintained its focus on safety, reliability and reasonable cost of electricity.

During these times, Gary Smith served as the CEO of PowerSouth Energy Cooperative. He held this position for more than 26 years and had a PowerSouth career spanning over 37 years. Like myself, Gary is an accountant, but he attended law school and became a lawyer not a CPA. However, Gary's greatest asset as CEO was his ability to develop relationships.

These relationships ranged from PowerSouth member cooperatives -- which SAEC is one -- employees and trustees, leaders at Alabama Power Company, the Business Council of Alabama and electric industry leaders.

By the time you read this article, Gary will be retired. The native of Corinth, Mississippi, made a big splash in the electric industry world. But things do change.

Gary and I are "Roll Tide Roll" fans and old enough to remember the times when Alabama had to hire a new head football coach to follow the greatest college football coach ever! Now, I am not going to discuss which Bama head football coach is No. 1 or No. 2, but Paul "Bear" Bryant and Nick Saban are, without a doubt, the greatest. You do not replace those coaches, and you do not replace Gary Smith.

Like Alabama football, PowerSouth has high standards. Our new CEO starts June 1. Damon Morgan will continue to meet those high standards and lead the members through the continuing rough waters of the electric industry.

Damon has over 40 years of service at PowerSouth, mentoring under Gary for over half of those years. Damon has a great ship to sail, and I am confident he will not run that ship to ground.

As far as the country boy from Corinth, I'm going to miss Gary's leadership, knowledge and his friendship. Gary enters retirement with his wife, Debbi, three daughters and sons-in-law and eight grandchildren. As you can see, Gary can stay as busy as he wants to be with his family. Gary also has a boating and fishing companion -- his trusted yellow Lab, Yadi.

Gary, good luck on your next race. You have finished your race at PowerSouth, and like a true Alabama football fan, you finished your race as a champion!

SAEC awards scholarships to local seniors

South Alabama Electric Cooperative awarded 24 scholarships to 22 local high school seniors — 20 through the Electric Cooperative Foundation plus four from the SAEC Employee Scholarship Fund for children of cooperative employees. Two of this year’s scholarship recipients received one of each. Students awarded ECF scholarships received $1,000 each, while those receiving SAEC Employee scholarships were given $1,250 each.

2026 Montgomery Youth Tour offers attendees important lessons, new connections

South Alabama Electric Cooperative’s delegates attending the 2026 Montgomery Youth Tour learned a lot about leadership, communication, history, government and how electric cooperatives serve communities.

And they had fun while learning. “We’ve talked a lot about leadership and about public speaking,” says Sarah Sanders, 16, a student at Pike Liberal Arts School. “There’s been so many fun activities with each of the speakers. We learned how to be attentive with each other and how our body language says a lot about how we present ourselves to people.”

The Montgomery Youth Tour is an annual event bringing high school juniors from around the state to the Alabama capital. Selected by local electric cooperatives, the students visit historic sites, museums, government buildings and participate in team-building and leadership activities. The statewide event is sponsored by the Alabama Rural Electric Association of Cooperatives as well as the local co-ops.

In June, electric cooperatives will send students to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s Washington, D.C., Youth Tour to visit the nation’s capital.

Sanders and Hayden Duncan, 17, will represent SAEC during the 2026 Washington Youth Tour.

Duncan, who attends Zion Chapel High School, says she was sad to see the Montgomery Youth Tour end. Those in the SAEC group, she says, managed to become friends in just three days.

“We’ve made sure to send all of our pictures to each other, and I feel like we’ll definitely keep in touch,” Duncan says.

Being around people she doesn’t know can be a bit intimidating for Duncan, but she realized she likely wasn’t the only Youth Tour attendee who felt that way and decided to just be herself.

“It was kind of like everyone wanted to get to know everybody, and there was no fear,”

Duncan says. “I had nothing to be afraid of — everyone’s here for the same things, and we just all want to get to know each other.” Duncan says she got a lot from the experience, gaining skills and tools to help her in life and at school. One guest speaker used an interactive beach ball game to teach attendees about communicating and working together to reach a goal — in this instance, keeping a beach ball in the air, a task that wasn’t as easy as it looked until those involved started talking to each other.

“You have to talk to people,” Duncan says. “You have to be OK to hear an opinion other than your own and work with people.”

Sanders says the tips on public speaking, which she considers one of her weaknesses, really hit home for her. Like Duncan, Sanders says she realized delegates were all there to learn.

“I have met so many new friends like from places all over that I would have never known about before this trip,” Sanders says. “And, honestly, it’s such a rewarding experience.”

Along with the speakers and leadership activities, Youth Tour attendees visited the Alabama Statehouse as well as sites like the historic Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor from 1954-60.

Both Duncan and Sanders say their eyes were opened by the trip to The Legacy Museum, which tracks the country’s history from the days of slavery to racial lynchings, Civil Rights and racial bias.

They say the museum’s exhibits taught the students history they had not learned in school.

“It was really an eye-opening experience, and a tour I went through slowly and just read as much as I could,” Sanders says.

The students are excited to visit Washington, D.C., in June and thrilled to travel together for the event that draws students from around the country. Duncan and Sanders sat with each other on the bus ride from Troy to Montgomery and got to know each other better.

Duncan says during the state trip she tried not to think about the Washington Youth Tour but just focus on the Montgomery trip and being herself.

“It kind of just helped me realize as long as you’re yourself, that’s all people want, and that will get you a lot further in life,” Duncan says.

Mothers matter. One day out of the year to acknowledge this hardly seems enough, especially considering the role they play in shaping our lives. A mother takes different forms — the woman who gave birth to a child, adopted a child as her own or someone who stepped up when a biological mother could not.

Sunday, May 10, is Mother’s Day, and we hope our residents are able to honor their moms on this special day even if an in-person celebration isn’t possible. Salute the work they do to care for us. Honor them for every skinned knee treated, meal provided and every day worked to feed, shelter and clothe us.

FROM MAYOR ISABELL BOYD AND THE BRUNDIDGE CITY COUNCIL, MAY ALL MOTHERS FEEL THE WARMTH AND RESPECT THEY DESERVE ON MOTHER’S DAY AND THROUGHOUT THE YEAR.

Lieutenant governor candidate Wes Allen sees electric co-ops as part of community foundations

Wes Allen feels connected to electric cooperatives.

Not only does he value the principles behind cooperatives, but he’s also a member of South Alabama Electric Cooperative.

“I know that South Alabama Electric is always looking to improve people’s lives and make our area more prosperous,” Allen says. “They’re looking for ways for economic growth. They’re looking for ways to serve the public and looking for ways to make sure that we have electricity and power that we can depend on.”

Allen is among the Republican candidates seeking his party’s endorsement in the May 19 primary to run for lieutenant governor. Alabama’s lieutenant governor — who is limited to two four-year terms — serves as the presiding officer for the state Senate as well as the successor to the governor. Governor and lieutenant governor candidates do not run on a single ticket. Rather, they are elected separately.

Allen became Alabama’s 54th secretary of state in January 2023, overseeing the state’s elections. He also served District 89 in the Alabama House of Representatives and as Pike County’s probate judge.

“The lieutenant governor’s role is very important, and it’s an important leadership position in our state,” Allen says. “We’ve got to continue with strong conservative leadership in that role, and there’s nobody better prepared with a more conservative record of accomplishments than me. My days in public service as a probate judge, as a state legislator and now serving as secretary of state have prepared me, through all of that experience, to use that experience in a very positive way and to use the relationships that I’ve been able to garner and to build through the state of Alabama to be a positive influence in the direction of our great state.

“Born and raised in Tuscaloosa County, Allen earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama and played football for the Crimson Tide. While attending the University of Alabama, he met his wife, Cae, who was captain for the Million Dollar Band’s Crimsonette line. Allen received his master’s degree from Troy University. He and Cae have two children, Davis, a graduate of Troy University, and Dee, a student at the University of Alabama.

Allen and his family are members of First Baptist Church of Troy, where he is an ordained deacon and Sunday School leader. Allen says his faith is important to him.

“We’re actively involved in our church, and we love our local fellowship there, so that’s an important part of my life,” he says. Earlier this year, Allen was endorsed for lieutenant governor by the Electric Cooperatives of Alabama Political Action Committee (PAC), the political arm of the Alabama Rural Electric Association of Cooperatives. The PAC supports candidates who champion rural communities as well as sound energy policy and the mission of Alabama’s electric cooperatives.

Allen says he was honored to receive the endorsement. Electric cooperatives around the state, he says, are part of the foundations of the communities they serve, working to not only deliver electricity but improve communities in other ways, such as economic development projects.

“They’re plugged in in so many different ways,” Allen says. “All the members and the people that run these cooperatives are people we see at church, they’re people we see at Rotary and other civic groups. They’re individuals that are highly invested in their local community, and they’re one reason that our communities throughout the state of Alabama are strong.”

Allen says he’s blessed to be in the position he is in to serve in state office and wants to continue serving Alabama to ensure the state is the best it can be for future generations.

“I want to be a part of the leadership team that continues to push Alabama forward,” he says. “Alabama is a great state. It is my home state where I was born and reared, and I want it to be the best it can possibly be for my kids and my grandchildren. We want to make sure Alabama is still a special place to raise a family.

“Allen says his legislative experience will give him good insight to preside over the Alabama Senate as lieutenant governor and help the legislative process move smoothly and efficiently. His focus on cutting red tape and wasteful spending as secretary of state, he says, will carry over well if he’s elected lieutenant governor.

No matter where he travels on his campaign, Allen says he meets people who are proud of their state, communities, churches and families, and he wants to help give them reasons to continue to be proud of Alabama.

“I want to make sure that I represent them in a way that will never embarrass them, and that we will just work hard each and every day to keep Alabama a great place to call home.” Allen says

South Alabama Electric Cooperative is not yet powerful enough to stop outages from happening, but we make reporting those outages as easy as grabbing your smartphone and sending a text message.

You don’t have to leave a voice message or wait on hold. Just add our outage number — 800-556-2060 — in your phone’s contact list and use a few key words in your message.

Text “OUT” to report an outage at your service address.

Text “STATUS” to get an update on an outage.

If you are not currently enrolled in the text outage alert system, please text "SAEC" to 800-556-2060

The success of SAEC’s text-based outage management system, however, depends on correct information for each member. The automated system uses caller ID to match your phone to your account, which is why it’s important for members to keep their account information up to date. Having current information, especially cellphone numbers, ensures faster response to outages. The system automatically retrieves your service address and maps your location.

Members can also use the SAEC Connect app to report and monitor outages.

Visit southaec.com/outage-safety for more information on the text outage alert system, including details on how to update your account as well as a list of frequently asked questions and a link to enroll in the text outage alert system.

For those of you who think the music class you took in school was not important, you never know when you may be called to jot down some notes. Butterfield then asked the brigade bugler, Oliver Norton, to play the notes. After hearing his rendition, he ordered Norton to play this new call at the end of each day. The music was heard and adopted by other brigades. The piece became the official Army bugle call after the Civil War ended and was given the name “Taps” in 1874.

“Taps” was first played at a military funeral soon after Butterfield composed it when Union Capt. John Tidball ordered it played for the burial of a cannoneer killed in action. By 1891, Army Infantry regulations required “Taps” to be played at military funeral ceremonies. Today it is played by the military at burials, at memorial services to accompany the lowering of the flag, and to signal the “lights out” command at day’s end.

In 1976, my dad, Lt. Col. Joseph W. Bailey, was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas. We lived in military housing on Biggs Army Airfield. There was no air conditioning in the military housing there, but we had this cooling device called a swamp cooler. The climate in West Texas is very dry, so the swamp cooler required windows to be cracked open slightly so moisture could be added into the dry air. By morning, you would be under blankets in the West Texas summer heat.

Every evening, “Taps” would be played, and I could hear it through the cracked windows.

I remember lying in bed, my heart filled with pride in our country and my eyes swelling with tears, proud of my dad and his service. You see, I’ve always heard that my dad entered the Army at 16, but he never told me when he entered the Army. A few months ago, I saw a picture of the Army National Guard unit in New Brockton, Alabama. The year was 1956, and there was my dad, who was born in January 1940. That puts him at 16. Also in the National Guard unit photo was his dad, Leon Bailey.

With my dad’s service and the sorrow for the lives cut short serving our great country, I still have the same reaction every time I hear “Taps” whether it’s played at Arlington National Cemetery, Normandy American Cemetery in France or on TV.

I pray we never forget the sacrifice of those lost while serving in the military.

When I write about “Taps” signaling the end of day, you may think “lights out” sends shockwaves within an electric utility, but I look at this action as energy conservation and not a power outage. We are entering the summertime season, which means summertime afternoon storms. My prayer is for your cooperative to catch a break from storms this year, but outages are going to occur. You can track outages by downloading the SAEC app from your smartphone’s app store or by visiting our website.

May is a good month to make sure your HVAC units are functioning properly. You will have better luck getting someone to check your unit in May before HVAC companies hit their busy season.

As you spend Memorial Day with family and friends, take a moment to reflect on the number of white crosses at the various national memorial cemeteries. There are 45 sets of brothers buried at the Normandy American Cemetery, killed during the D-Day landings and subsequent battles.

These families made a huge sacrifice. Each cross is a life cut short. Thank them all in your heart for your freedom. God bless them all.

• You’re having a garage sale, and you think posting a sign on a utility pole won’t hurt. Everyone does it, right?
• It’s nearing 5 p.m. on a workday. Your boss wanted that last-minute report, and you need to pick up your kids from soccer and play practice. You jump in your car, and on the way, you approach a work zone. You don’t have time to slow down, so you rush through it and ignore the orange work zone signs.

Either of these scenarios could injure or kill 1 of our linemen.

The job of an electric lineman is not easy. Linemen take great pride in providing safe and reliable service, but their job involves working on and around live power lines in the elements. We ask you to do your part to keep them safe:

• Slow down and move over in work zones. Driving too fast or not moving over can put not only workers on the ground at risk, but it also endangers a lineman working high up in a bucket by causing it to move or sway.
• Do not post anything on a utility pole, especially with staples, nails, or tacks. These can puncture insulated gloves or other protective clothing and expose workers to high voltages.
• Never plug a generator into an indoor or outdoor wall outlet. The power that backfeeds into the electric line could electrocute a utility worker.
• Please be patient when the power goes out. Workers need to restore power efficiently and safely.

We appreciate your help in keeping our employees safe. For more information about electrical safety, visit the Safe Electricity website.