Members of Egyptian Telephone Cooperative meeting
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Members of Egyptian Telephone Cooperative received updates on the co-op's voice and broadband services, learned of the continuation of a cooperative promotion and were informed of substantial capital credit refunds during the co-op's 58th Annual Meeting held Friday, April 13th, at the American Legion Hall in Steeleville.
Egyptian Telephone is owned and operated by its members, and governed by an elected board of directors. This year, members re-elected to three-year terms on the board are Phil Carson of Oakdale, Sue Wennemann of St. Libory, and Curtis Wolf of Venedy.
Members benefit from excess capital of the cooperative in the form of capital credits. For the 22nd consecutive year, the cooperative will retire capital credits. Checks will be mailed to members for their portion of the approximate $500,000 to be returned.
Members who take the co-op's long distance service also received free long distance calls for the months of July and December in 2011. The next free month planned for is July of this year.
In his report, Board President Phil Carson of Oakdale, said Egyptian Telephone, comprised of seven exchanges, could best be described using seven key words corresponding to the first letter of the name of the seven exchanges: basic, broadband, glory, opportunities, rural, standard and voice. Egyptian Telephone continues to offer basic products and services that are still important to its membership. In addition, broadband services have created new opportunities for both the membership and the cooperative. The theme of the meeting "Hearing Yesterday - Seeing Tomorrow" spoke directly to the glory of the cooperative's past as well as the standards by which the cooperative is run. "We believe in equal and affordable access to broadband for all Americans, not for 10%, not for 50%, all Americans," says Carson.
General Manager Kevin Jacobsen updated those in attendance on the state of the cooperative and those advances.
"We are pleased to report that despite all financial hurdles, your cooperative remains in good financial condition," he said.
Broadband territory advances were pushed. Jacobsen said, "During 2011, Egyptian continued to expand its fiber network. Our fiber provides redundant routing in case of cable cuts or other service impacting outages. Fiber is the latest technology that allows Egyptian to provide additional services now and advanced features in the future," Jacobsen said.
Jacobsen then thanked the employees, board and members for their roles in the cooperative's success.
Egyptian Telephone Cooperative Association serves 2,600 members in Jackson, Perry, Randolph, St. Clair and Washington counties. For more information visit HYPERLINK "http://www.egyptian.net/"www.egyptian.net.