Beltrami Electric board member Sue Kringen wins MinnKota Red Lantern Award

Sue Kringen’s Red Lantern Award is more than a career milestone. As Beltrami Electric Cooperative’s vice chair and District 8 director from Bemidji, she sits on the board that helps shape the local decisions behind reliability, infrastructure spending and the costs members see on their electric bills.

MinnKota Power Cooperative presented the award for 10 years of service on a member distribution cooperative board. Kringen has served on the Beltrami Electric board since 2016, and she represents one of nine member-director seats at the cooperative, with one director elected from each district to three-year terms. In a system built on member oversight, that board is the local layer of accountability between ratepayers and the larger power supply decisions that affect homes, farms and businesses across Beltrami County.

The award was announced at MinnKota Power Cooperative’s annual meeting, where the cooperative also highlighted the broader pressures now shaping the electric industry. Those pressures include pandemic recovery, volatile energy markets, grid instability, extreme weather and the ongoing energy transition. For Beltrami Electric members, those are not abstract trends. They influence how quickly utilities can plan upgrades, maintain lines and respond to outages, while also affecting the wholesale power costs that eventually work their way into local rates.

Kringen’s recognition also reflects the training and leadership expected of cooperative directors. Beltrami Electric previously noted that Kringen earned the Director Gold certificate alongside board chair John Lund, a credential that signals advanced board education and a deeper understanding of utility governance. That kind of experience matters in a cooperative model where directors are expected to weigh long-term system reliability against short-term cost pressure.

Her public service record reaches well beyond the electric cooperative. Beltrami Electric’s board biography says Kringen was the first full-time executive director of the United Way of the Bemidji Area and has served on the boards of the Bemidji Area Chamber of Commerce, Bemidji Youth Hockey, Bemidji Gymnastics Club, The Salvation Army, the Bemidji Rotary Club, Lakeland Public Television and the United Way of Bemidji Area.

For Beltrami Electric members, the honor spotlights a board member with deep local roots and a hand in decisions that shape service planning, system investment and the long-term stability of the cooperative that powers much of rural Beltrami County.