On December 13, 1952, the cooperative was organized and incorporated. Paul Burke of Miller was hired as their attorney to draw up the necessary papers for incorporation. In November 1952, two more were added to the committee - Harold Currier, Onida, and Joe Blaseg, Ree Heights. The engineering firm made the appraisal and verified the feeling of the committee, which was that the price Ollig was asking was too high. MacKichon & Associates engineering firm to seek their services as consulting engineers. He granted the committee permission to make an appraisal of the property in order to establish an REA equity valuation. But if the committee felt they needed these three exchanges to make an REA loan feasible, he would sell them at his book value. Ollig said he had no intention of selling any of his holdings. The committee and the REA Field Representative, Erkkila, met with L. The small companies which eventually became a part of Sully Buttes were Wessington Hills Telephone Company, Wessington Turtle Creek Telephone Company, Wessington Ree Heights Cooperative Telephone Company, Ree Heights Sedgewick Telephone Company, Highmore Holabird Telephone Company Holabird Southern Hyde Telephone Company, Highmore Stockmans Telephone Company, Highmore Harrold Telephone Company, Harrold Farmers Union Telephone Company, Harrold Line 242, Blunt Gas Belt Telephone Company, Onida Farmers Mutual Telephone Company, Onida and Eastern Sully Telephone Company, Onida. Under the guidelines of the REA representatives, members of the small farmer-owned lines, which dotted the areas, were contacted and they agreed to sell their holdings if a cooperative would be formed. Vandarwarka, had already offered to sell. Members of this committee were Emil Martens, Wessington Glenn Hughes, Onida Randal Mercer, Blunt Lawrence Stoley, Highmore and Wayne Wade of Highmore, who was named coordinator. A five-man committee representing the five counties was appointed and organized to contact Ollig to see if he would sell the exchanges of Blunt, Highmore, and Wessington to make an REA loan feasible. The key holding company in these areas was the Missouri Valley Telephone Company, owned by L. The farmers in attendance at that meeting were a very determined group, and the recommendation was adopted by the unit. The REA Field Representative, Mauritz Erkkila, suggested the group organize a telephone cooperative that would include all or parts of Hyde, Hughes, Sully, Hand, and Beadle counties. The men also discovered that all of them had many things in common and the problems were much the same, such as the towns were all served by telephone companies that either could not or would not build modern telephone lines to the farms and ranches in these counties. The other counties seemed to be a little further along than Hyde County. They found that Sully, Hughes, and Hand County farmers had no better telephone service than Hyde County farmers did, and all of them had held organizing meetings and signed up members. Three rural Hyde County residents - Lawrence Stoley, Wayne Wade, and Dick Raske - realizing the importance of obtaining telephone service for the rural areas, attended the organizational meeting held in Onida. Those attending from Hyde County were advised to attend a meeting that was going to be held in Onida. In late 1952, many people interested in reliable telephone service attended a state-wide meeting held in Huron by REA representatives and officials. In times of emergency, rural residents would build a large fire to attract the attention of airplanes that were kept in the air for that purpose. The severe winter of 1951-52 hastened the Hyde County organizers to “get the ball rolling” to get telephone service in the area. The many blizzards and deep snow left many people no way of communicating with anyone for long periods of time. Those who became affiliated with Sully Buttes Telephone Cooperative and attended those meetings were Harold Courier and Glenn Hughes, both of Onida, and Randal Mercer, of Blunt. The first organizational meetings were held in Sully County in 1951. The objective was to provide telephone service “to the widest practicable number of rural users.” At this time, area residents started proceedings to form a cooperative. The Rural Telephone Program became law in October 1949, as an amendment to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. Most farms didn’t have telephone service at all, or if they did, it was just between close neighbors. ![]() When the trading centers converted to automatic dial telephones, and rural residents started getting electric power, the old single-wire telephones didn’t work well enough to do much good.
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