Just been looking at utility stocks again and there's something worth paying attention to if you're into dividend investing. Black Hills, the electric and natural gas company, has been quietly raising its dividend every single year for 55 years straight. That's Dividend King territory—basically the elite club of dividend payers.

What caught my eye is that this thing is yielding around 4.4% right now. Compare that to the S&P 500 sitting at like 1.3% or the broader utility average hovering around 2.9%. It's actually toward the high end of where Black Hills has traded over the past decade, which means it's looking pretty attractive on valuation.

The company serves about 1.35 million customers across eight states, and here's the interesting part—their customer base is growing at nearly 3x the rate of US population growth. More customers basically means more revenue without having to do much extra work. Management is guiding for 4-6% annual earnings growth, which isn't flashy but it's steady.

Now, you might wonder why Warren Buffett hasn't scooped this up for Berkshire Hathaway. Honestly, it's simple—Black Hills is too small. At $4.4 billion market cap, it wouldn't meaningfully move the needle for a $1.1 trillion conglomerate. Plus, there's limited overlap with Berkshire's existing utility operations, so the strategic fit isn't there.

But that doesn't mean it's not worth your attention. If you're looking at best utilities ETF options or building a dividend portfolio, Black Hills deserves consideration. It's boring, sure—no cocktail party bragging rights here. But that's kind of the point. Fifty-five years of consecutive dividend increases means this company actually executes through both good and bad times.

What's particularly interesting is that those dividend hikes have outpaced inflation historically, so your purchasing power actually grows over time. You can either reinvest the dividends or use them as income. Either way, it's the kind of unsexy, steady wealth-building play that actually works.

The real lesson from watching what Buffett does with utilities is that you don't need his scale or his company to find solid dividend opportunities. Sometimes the best plays are the ones too small for the mega-funds to bother with.