Last week, I had the great pleasure of traveling to Southwest Virginia to participate in a cell site ground breaking ceremony. The event was held at a beautiful town hall in the rural community of Pound, Virginia. In fact, the town hall was once a school house where the current mayor - Sarah (Jackie) Gilliam - attended high school. Pound is an old coal town that sits near the Kentucky and Tennessee borders and the roughly 1,000 people that live there have never had wireless service. Enter Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher and Alltel President and CEO Scott Ford.
As a member of both the House Energy and Commerce Committee and its Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Congressman Boucher has a keen sense of how mobile communications are helping to revitalize communities all over the country. So it was with that in mind that Congressman Boucher reached out to Alltel about providing wireless service to the residents of Pound, Va. The result was Monday's event,
where Congressman Boucher, Scott Ford, Wise County Supervisor Frank Luntsford, Pound Mayor Gilliam and myself joined with local leaders and residents to break ground on a new cell site that will be operational in June. In his remarks, Scott Ford mentioned how critical the USF ETC program is for projects like the one in Pound, VA. Without USF support, he said projects like this simply wouldn't be possible.
So to Mayor Gilliam, Supervisor Luntsford and all of the wonderful people who joined us the other day for this exciting announcement, I want to thank you for your warm hospitality and welcome you to an ever-growing wireless community. We sincerely hope that wireless service will allow the residents of Pound to enjoy safer, more productive and more prosperous lives.
Steve
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