Latest Press Releases for 2009/2010

The Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative (Blackfoot) Board of Trustees today announced the winners of the 2010 Blackfoot Scholarship Fund totaling $16,000. Established in 1996, the scholarship fund was created to support and encourage post-secondary education for member-owners residing in Blackfoot’s service territories. The fund awards $500 individual scholarships to outstanding High School students continuing their education in the Fall of 2010.

Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative (Blackfoot) will be hosting the first annual Education Technology Conference: Technology Tools for Inspiring Young Minds, for K-8 educators, superintendents, and schools administrators on August 3-5, 2010 at the University of Montana in the Phyllis J. Washington College of Education and Human Sciences Building.

Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative (Blackfoot) paid out over $1.2 million to their Cooperative owner members as part of their 2009 distribution of Capital Credit checks. When you purchase services from a Cooperative you build equity in the business. Each year Blackfoot pays out a portion of this equity in cash to each of their members based on the total services they purchased from the Cooperative and the length of time they’ve been customers.

Blackfoot Telecommunications Group (Blackfoot) brings peace of mind to Western Montana with Blackfoot Security and Video Solutions, offering state-of-the-art home and business security systems with simple to use equipment, affordable monitoring services, 24-hour emergency response, licensed installation technicians and local customer support. Blackfoot’s decision to offer home and business security grew out of conversations with their customers about property crimes in Montana. In fact, the Montana Board of Crime Control’s statistics show that property crimes were reported on average every 20 minutes.

At Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative (Blackfoot), being a good corporate neighbor is a longstanding business practice. They achieve this through their willingness and desire to be a part of each of their 22 service areas in Western Montana – through charitable contributions, in-kind donations, event sponsorships, and educational initiatives like their Scholarship Program for graduating seniors. Blackfoot continues to be supportive in many other programs such as the Easy Access Internet Training for senior citizens, the Blackfoot Technology Tour for high school students and their EEE Program that donates technology equipment to rural secondary schools.

Should taxpayer dollars be used to build a competing business next to your establishment? Apparently New Jersey based Bresnan Communications’ and Governor Schweitzer believe so. Supported by a recommendation of “top priority funding” from the Governor and a White Paper prepared by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), Bresnan proposes to build duplicate fiber rings to seven supposedly un-served and under-served Reservations in Montana. The first page of the White Paper sets forth that “Without question the communications private sector had not found a justification for investment in Indian Country. In June of 2005, GOED requested Bresnan Communications to investigate the possibility of investing in communications in Indian Country and they put together a plan…..” Imagine our surprise, as an independent broadband data and telephone provider, to have our $16.2 Million investment in infrastructure on the Flathead Reservation completely dismissed.

The Internet is everywhere these days and some young people seem born to use it. But for many of the older generation the World Wide Web is a World Wide Mystery. To demystify the Internet, Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative (Blackfoot) has launched the Easy Access Internet Program, a program that starts with the basics of navigating the Internet and will evolve into more advanced subjects in spring 2010. Last Tuesday, Blackfoot rolled into downtown Thompson Falls and hosted their workshop event at the Internet Kitchen with much success.

On October 17, there’s one more reason to cheer the University ofrnMontana’s Grizzlies to victory against Eastern Washington. As the Official Game Day Sponsor,rnBlackfoot will donate two hundred dollars to CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) for everyrnGRIZ touchdown.

Over thirty graduates from eleven western Montana high schools received a combined total of $16,000 in scholarship assistance. After considering over 65 applications from high school seniors throughout their service areas, the Blackfoot Telecommunications Group (Blackfoot) Board of Trustees selected the most driven and outstanding students in western Montana.

On May 30, 2009, Blackfoot Telecommunications Group (Blackfoot) will be sending two Montanans to Washington D.C., to attend the Fifteenth Annual Foundation for Rural Service (FRS) Youth Tour. Blackfoot’s Board of Trustees considered many applications from communities within their service areas and unanimously selected Ashley Holmes of Seeley Lake and Justin Ailport of Drummond to participate in an all expense paid trip to our nation’s Capitol.

Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative (Blackfoot) mailed over $1.4 million to their Cooperative owner members as part of their 2008 distribution of Capital Credit checks. Capital Credits are ownership accounts created by allocating the difference between Blackfoot’s operating costs and revenue to members.

Blackfoot Telecommunications Group (Blackfoot), Western Montana’s leader in voice, data, and network solutions, introduced Network Protection Service (NPS), a managed service that protects and monitors businesses’ PCs and servers. With critical customer data and work information residing on their machines, businesses are often at risk of work slowdowns due to viruses that impact an individual PC or the entire local area network (LAN), or worse, business information that is at risk of being compromised or lost. Blackfoot’s NPS managed service provides a fast and simple way to resolve business network issues today for peace of mind tomorrow.

Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative (Blackfoot) announced that Butch Friede, Hall resident and ranch foreman at Johnson Tuning Fork Ranch, was appointed to Blackfoot’s Board of Trustees at their meeting last week. Friede will be representing Blackfoot customers that reside in Drummond, Philipsburg, Hall, Maxville, and the Rock Creek drainage area.

Blackfoot’s Kate Olney and Barak Longnecker hand-delivered a check this month for $6000 to Clark Fork Valley Hospital’s CEO Gregory Hanson, which was the final payment of a 5-year commitment and $30,000 total contribution to the hospital’s Birthing Center. Roughly 50 newborns are born each year in the newly remodeled Birthing Suite, and with the passing of Missoula’s Birth Center, Hanson is seeing more mothers from Missoula decide to have their babies in Plains.

After faithfully serving the Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative (Blackfoot) as Trustee of District 2 representing Alta, Avon, Drummond, and Ovando for more than 20 years, Doris Stinson of Elliston retired from the Board of Trustees effective December 29, 2008. Stinson played an integral role in guidin Blackfoot through many changes over her two-decade tenure, including such milestones as positioning Blackfoot in their role as the first rural Montana company to introduce an all VoIP telephone and broadband network in Montana, implementation of equal access to all long-distance carriers, complete conversion to digital switching, as well as the acquisition of telephone service areas from both Continental Telephone and US West.