New RE Magazine editor has Kentucky roots

Kentucky native Blake Whitney was named editor of Rural Electric (RE) Magazine in April. The flagship publication of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, RE has been published since 1942 and provides electric co-op directors/trustees, chief executives and front-line employees with insights to make sound decisions in the electric utility industry.

Articles and columns cover the essentials of co-op operations; highlight emerging products and services; explore business, management, communications, safety and marketing trends; and examine policy, regulatory and power supply issues affecting electric cooperatives and the more than 42 million consumers they serve across 48 states. 

Whitney is a native of Lexington, where he attended Henry Clay High School. He grew up in the shadow of the University of Kentucky campus, spending most home football Saturdays at Commonwealth Stadium with his dad. His grandparents lived in Woodford County just a stone’s throw from the Woodford Reserve Distillery. Today, most of his family still lives in Fayette County, and he loves taking friends from Washington, D.C., to Keeneland.

He graduated from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in 2004 and worked for then-Host Communications in Lexington from 2004 to 2007 before moving to the nation’s capital. There, he worked for Roll Call, a newspaper covering Capitol Hill; the Washington Business Journal; and as an editor at a healthcare research organization before joining NRECA in June 2021.

Whitney is the NRECA liaison for the Statewide Editors Association and works closely with the electric co-op magazine community.