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Parson announces money for SEMO Electric project
SIKESTON — Missouri governor Mike Parson traveled to Southeast Missouri on Tuesday afternoon, attending a broadband development event at SEMO Electric Cooperative.
During his visit, Parson announced that 16 projects from eight different providers were getting $3 million toward their respective projects. SEMO Electric was one of those 16.
Parson announced that SEMO Electric was receiving $142,000 for Scott County projects.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, everything has been affected in some way.
Mentioning that during his talk with board members at SEMO Electric, Parson said that when he became governor of the state, one thing that he was aiming for was strong infrastructure and workforce development.
“You can’t have one without the other,” said Parson on Tuesday.
Parson also mentioned that seven-to-eight schools are currently without broadband throughout the state, leaving students and teachers in a bind on how to go about learning and teaching material. With effective and high-speed broadband, Parson said that could change, and added that since the pandemic hit and students had to go virtual, that left a void for those without means to the Internet at home.
“When we shut schools down, some kids didn’t have the means to do virtual learning,” Parson said.
Parson also mentioned that rural Missouri would have a significant impact on growing the entire state.
In 2017, board directors at SEMO Electric decided to bring high-speed fiber broadband to the area.
Serving a 2,000-mile radius, SEMO Electric announced a $52 million project that was initially for 60 months. Due to construction, though, that plan shrunk to 36 months.
Overall, GoSEMO Fiber adds roughly 200 new subscribers per month, with the group connecting its 4,000th member in May.
GoSEMO Fiber’s Lloyd Rice said that since the pandemic, there were nearly 1,400 connected households. Tuesday, SEMO Electric announced that the company was nearing its 5,000 connection as well.