ROGERSVILLE - "I think it's rather amazing that you could come here and in less than two years, take a flat piece of ground, and now produce 870,880 megawatts of electric power to keep power rates low," Phil Roe says of TVA's new combined cycle gas plant.  The United States Congressman was on hand Thursday as TVA officially dedicated the John Sevier Combined Cycle Gas Plant, which went online April 30.

"I believe that (with) inexpensive power-we get our own resources in this country, coal, natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear, the whole arnament of it-that we can re-create the middle class by bringing manufacturing back to this country with what we're doing right here," Roe said.

"My mother was born (Sept. 3, 1922)  in Indian Mound, Tennessee," Roe said. "She was 19 before she had electricity. Most people don't remember in the Tennessee Valley what actually happened and what electric power has meant to us.

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This story was written and provided by Jim Beller-The Rogersville Review Staff Writer.