Vernon Telephone Cooperative - Westby, Wisconsin

A movement began to form a rural telephone cooperative in Vernon County on March 15, 1950. A group of farmers met at Liberty Pole and decided to organize the cooperative. Until this time individual towns like, Westby, LaFarge, Liberty Pole, DeSoto, Genoa, and others had a single operator working 24 hours a day. Vernon Telephone History

The operator was usually based in the general store and substandard telephone lines were strung anywhere from fence posts to trees to buildings. N.F Leifer manager of Vernon Electric Cooperative of Westby offered to serve as temporary manager and assisted in obtaining a low interest loan from the REA (Rural Electrification Administration) Bank in Washington. In order to qualify for a REA loan an organization had to prove that a loan was going to be used to upgrade an unserviced rural area with electricity or telephone service. The first member meeting was held in April 1950, and the following board was elected: Ole Traastad, chairman; Martin Hanson, secretary-treasurer, Otto Harder, Genoa; Asa Harris, Viroqua; Ivan Fortun, Liberty Pole, Gus Massie, Genoa; and William E. Thompson, DeSoto. Calling themselves the Bad Axe Telephone Company they set up office on West Court Street in Viroqua. Bad Axe endured numerous setbacks, stalling the approval of their first REA loan over four years until May 24, 1954. It wasn't until 1961 when they moved their offices to Westby that they were officially called Vernon Telephone Cooperative. This group continued meeting on a regular basis, signed up members and filed Articles of Incorporation on October 25, 1951. Membership drives remained strong during the loan approval waiting process. The membership fee was $10 or more if a member could afford it.

Today there is no membership fee. A new customer pays up-front connecting fee and earns dividends according to phone usage. Engineering was completed in 1955 for the design of a rural party line dial system in the DeSoto, Genoa, and Liberty Pole exchanges. Before dial service telephones, people used party line crank phones. The future of crank party lines would become obsolete after the first annual meeting was held on February 25, 1956. Jerome Espe was hired as project supervisor to install and oversee the construction of the first rural telephone dial party line system at the DeSoto, Genoa, and Liberty Pole exchanges. The system became active in July of 1957. In 1958, the Cooperative purchased the La Farge Telephone Company which was constructed to provide dial service. At the 1958 annual meeting Anthony Curti of Genoa was elected president, Milan Slayback of LaFarge, vice-president, and William Thompson of DeSoto treasurer-secretary. In April of 1959, negotiations were completed for the Viola and Readstown exchanges, which were converted to dial service in December 1960. In 1960 negotiations to merge with the Westby Telephone Company began; on July 7, 1961 this merge was completed.

In 1961 Bad Axe Telephone Company officially became known as Vernon Telephone Cooperative. The general office was moved from Viroqua to Westby in December of 1961, and Vernon Telephone Cooperative assumed management of the Westby Telephone Company on January 1, 1962. The Westby exchange was converted to dial service in 1963 with a five-party line system. The Vernon Telephone original system of 700 phones had grown to serve 3239 members with nine elected directors. In 1967 Vernon Telephone merged with the Yuba Telephone Cooperative and completed its first all one party buried plant dial system, which was placed into service July 1, 1968.

In 1970, Vernon began converting all exchanges to one party service. This program was completed in December 1973, giving every member private line service and direct long distance dialing. The Vernon Telephone system operated unprofitably from 1957 through 1973. Through installation of the one party buried service which stimulated usage, the cooperative was able to start producing margins which have remained consistent.

In 1980, Vernon Telephone began plans to convert electro mechanical switched to digital, a program which was completed in 1987, bringing Vernon Telephone members most of the modern day services available in the United States. Some of these services were digital call conversion, call waiting, three-way calling and speed dialing. In 1990, plans began to replace high traffic routes with fiber optic cable. Vernon Telephone Cooperative was one of the first phone companies in the state of Wisconsin to offer fiber-optic lines to rural customers. Vernon Telephone had the first fiber-led carrier unit in the state and one of the first in the nation. In 1992 and 1993, several miles of fiber optics were installed and placed into service. Vernon Telephone is currently heading up Vernon County's 911 emergency conversion system. This is a joint venture involving Vernon Telephone, Frontier, Coon Valley Farmers Telephone, Century-Tel, Hillsboro Telephone and the Richland Grant Telephone Cooperative.

Vernon Communications, a subsidiary of Vernon Telephone Cooperative, Inc., was formed on January 1, 2001 with the purpose of providing telecommunication services to our customers. Vernon Communications offers services such as long distance, Dial Up and DSL Internet service, and coming soon digital video.

By the end of the 1990's Vernon Telephone began the process of converting exchange station switched to one centralized location in Westby to save on maintenance time. Vernon Telephone Cooperative has completed a the central office upgrade that has taken nearly a decade. The idea started in early 1992, when Vernon Telephone Cooperative explored a plan that would allow the central offices from the outlying exchanges to be tied back to one switch at the main office in Westby. In 1992 they began plowing fiber optic cable and a rebuild of copper cable in key locations in the Vernon Telephone Cooperative service area. In 1994 Digital Serving Areas (DSA) were designed for parts of the service area to act as little miniature central offices. There are 55 of these DSAs set up and running today. The actual consolidation and turning down of existing central office equipment in outlying central offices began in October 2001 and was completed in April 2002.

This upgrade allows Vernon Telephone Cooperative to expand its capacity on the network giving them ability to allow high speed data services and enhanced voice services out to remote rural subscribers. Right now about 90% of Vernon Telephone's members can receive high speed internet access. This percentage far exceeds the amount offered by most telephone companies throughout the United States.

The telecommunications industry is changing, and Vernon Telephone needs to stay ahead so it can offer all the new cutting edge services available to its members. Projects like this aid Vernon Telephone in expanding it services to its members.