Three of rural Kentucky's most impactful residents have been honored as winners of the 2025 Who Powers You content conducted by Kentucky's Touchstone Energy Cooperatives. 

Jackson Energy member Tracie Byers was the overall winner; Salt River Electric member Nate Jarboe was the second-place winner with South Kentucky RECC members Julie and Michael Peterson coming in third place. They were awarded $2,000, $1,500, and $500 respectively. Each said they will donate their winnings back to their respective causes. 

Inspired by the story of a newly sober young man who tried to feed a few of his still-homeless friends, Byers has taken caring for the addicted, homeless or less fortunate to a new level. 

What started as taking roughly 80 meals a month of the homeless encampments in the London area has become Isaiah 58:10 Ministries and Outreach. Now serving people in five counties all the way to Tennessee, Byers and a team of volunteers served more than 4,000 sack lunches and more than 100 meals at the soup kitchen (not counting the people she helps shelter) in November 2025. 

"We offer food boxes if someone is hungry. We take out cold weather supplies to help them survive the winter months," Byers said. 

Byers is retired, after serving in the United States Navy for a decade as a young woman. "I work harder now than I did when I was getting a paycheck," she said. But everyday she's led to this work by God. Her mother and grandmother performed some of the same kinds of helping gestures, but not on the scale that Byers is now. 

"God is doing this. He keeps putting resources in our path to be able to help these people," Byers said. 

The second-place winner, Jarboe, has had the heart of a servant since he was young, saving his pennies for an African Elephant Rescue he had seen on television. Now a senior at the University of Louisville, he's focused on local issues, raising $3,000 personally for cancer research. 

"He connected with local non-profits and businesses to found the Give a Day for Hunger initiative, which supplied over $80,000.00 value in donations and volunteer time, becoming a sustainable program cross the state. He organized over 1,200 volunteers, mostly children, over those first three years of the program," said Lori Jarboe, who nominated Nate. 

"It made me feel good," Jarboe said. "It made me want to volunteer in my community. It was a way I could go spend time in my community and with my friends in a way that I knew it was helping people." 

But his volunteer spirit didn't end in elementary school or even high school. 

Now a four-term service chair with the Sigma Chi fraternity, he thought they could do more service hours when he was just a freshman. "It didn't just have to be some guys hanging out, we could do some good," Jarboe said. 

He admits that he wanted to join a fraternity in order to have a number of friends in a service organization available to help make positive changes where they could. And they have. 

"We've done close to $300,000 in community impact while I've been in the chapter and involved in some way. Whether I was president and overseeing the service chair this past year or service chair myself, we've done more than 7,600 service hours," Jarboe said. 

Last year Sigma Chi set a record by raising $95,000 for Raise Red, a record among organizations on campus. 

The Petersons, third place winners, have spent hours each week feeding the hungry for the last 12 years. 

Their ministry, Project 58:10, has a simple mission: packing bags of food for school children who may not have enough to eat to take home to their families on Fridays. 

"They have gone the extra mile for years to make this happen," said Mike New, who nominated the couple for the contest. "Fundraising alone is a huge task. Volunteers are assembled weekly throughout the community, with different groups packing bags. This would not have happened without the leadership and effort of the Petersons."

"Michael I got involved with Project 58:10 12 years ago, and we started packing 50 bags a week out of Oak Hill Baptist Church, which we felt like was a huge feat," said Julie. "Our church has really shown up for us. We have multiple volunteers every other Tuesday from picking the food up from Kroger, to setting it up in the gymnasium and then coming back that evening to help pack the bags."

This project serves 22 schools, four libraries and a number of head-start programs. The number of bags filled with food for needy children has grown to more than 800 per week across the county, more than 35,000 over the course of each year, including summer months. 

The Who Powers You content runs each October, and nominations will be open in 2026 at www.whopowersyouky.com. Visit the website to learn more about all the winners.