September 16, 2018
By: Dwayne Page
Three members of the DTC Communications Board of Directors were re-elected to new three years terms without opposition Saturday during the annual membership meeting of DeKalb Telephone Cooperative in Alexandria.
Ronnie Garrison of the Smithville Exchange received 176 votes. Bennie “Buck” Curtis of the Alexandria Exchange had 172 votes and Randy Campbell of the Liberty Exchange got 167 votes. A total of 181 members cast ballots in the director election.
In addition to Garrison, Curtis, and Campbell, members of the DTC board are Kurt Bass of Temperance Hall, James H. Dillard, Jr. of Gordonsville, Roy N. Pugh of Auburntown, Jim Vinson of Milton, Terry McPeak of Norene, David Parker of Woodland, and Michael Alexander of Woodbury.
In his report to the membership, President Roy N. Pugh said DTC Communications is keeping the promises made toward improving the quality of life for its members.
“About two years ago, your DTC Communications Board of Directors worked with our CEO Chris Townson, to carefully consider a broad, ambitious plan to improve DTC’s financial standing and position the company for current and future success. The plan included the primary goal of constructing a world-class fiber optic network that would deliver cutting-edge services related to education, entertainment, economic development, government, business and more,” said Pugh
“I am happy to say that we are keeping that promise. About 35% of our members now have access to the fiber network and we expect that number to increase to close to 50% by the end of next year, slightly ahead of schedule,” added Pugh.
Following Pugh’s remarks, CEO Townson elaborated in more detail on the improvements made by DTC within the last year.
“I am pleased to report to you today that we do continue to deliver on the promises of cooperatively working together to improve the quality of life for our members and the region we serve. Under this board’s direction and support, DTC’s employees have worked to build 391 new miles of fiber optic plant, almost doubling available access state of the art telecommunications and broadband internet services to DTC’s members. Additionally, DTC continues to build hundreds of miles of new fiber in parts of the Auburntown, Milton, Norene, Smithville, and Woodbury exchanges and we are planning and engineering for additional builds in the Alexandria, Gordonsville, Norene, and Smithville Exchanges also in 2019. Additional project areas will be determined soon. All this means is that thousands of members will now or soon will have a greater access to all the services they so desperately need. We are still on target to complete the first three phases of the project by 2021,” said Townson.
“Under this board’s direction and with careful planning and acute project management we also report that we continue to improve our cooperative’s financial performance. When reviewing your annual report you will see that we improved net earnings for the consolidated enterprise by approximately two million dollars year over year from 2016 to 2017. We did this while paying off our USDA RUS debt and while also investing approximately $5.6 million into capital improvements directly related to improved service to our membership. I am also pleased to report that so far in 2018 we continue moving forward with a strong financial performance,” Townson continued.
“We talk often of the challenges we face in this industry. Its not easy to build, maintain, and operate a complex network in a high cost area while still providing services at an affordable price. In fact many of our neighbors have suffered for years from the lack of access to robust services provided by DTC. As a result of this board of directors’ actions, two such areas will soon have access to voice video and gigabit capable broadband internet provided by DTC. Communities around the Watertown area in Wilson County and areas around Rawls Creek and Plunkett’s Creek in Smith County will soon be served as a result of DTC being awarded a Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act Grant in the amount of $1.75 million. DTC’s board of directors saw a need and an opportunity to help our neighbors and has chosen to invest in these underserved areas to meet that need. All of our communities and region will soon be better because of their leadership on this issue and more,” said Townson.
“There are many challenges to what we do but your cooperative is as committed as we have ever been to ensure that our communities have access to world class broadband and a telecommunications network that will allow for the best in education, entertainment, economic development, and any other form of e-connectivity that provides what we all need and that is opportunity,” Townson concluded.
DTC’s 2018 scholarship recipient, 18 year old Owen Queen of Watertown, addressed the membership with his winning essay about the important role of DTC in the community.