Co-ops build Economic Power

October 8, 2022

October is National Cooperative Month, and this year’s theme “Co-ops Build Economic Power,” is lived out every day by GBT!

When GBT began in 1953, a group of individuals came together to form a Cooperative with Member-Owners to fill the unmet need of providing quality telecommunications in the rural, sparsely populated areas of Kansas. GBT, along with other Cooperatives formed in the early years, including those generating and providing electricity and those providing elevators to receive and transport farmers’ crops to market, improved the standard of living for area residents and stimulated the economy in rural Kansas!

Fast forward nearly 70 years, and GBT is one of 36 Rural Telephone Cooperatives that together cover nearly half the state of Kansas, serving our customers with Voice, Video, Cellular, Home Security, Computer Repair, IT Services, and the Game Changer—High-Speed Broadband! Over 95% of GBT’s telephone exchange customers are connected to FIBER BROADBAND, with plans to reach 100% by 2023. USDA deems 100 Mbps download x 20 Mbps upload as “sufficient broadband access”, and GBT FIBER has the speed capability of more than 100x this speed! Plus, think for a moment how you can use the Internet—work from home, financial and credit card transactions, agriculture monitoring, email, research, student education, telehealth visits with doctors, electronic medical records, cloud-based servers, streaming video…the list goes on and on.

Cooperatives make decisions locally, and GBT is led by a Board of Directors elected by the Member-Owners at our Annual Meeting, representing the 7 Districts of the GBT area: James Jecha, Timken; Clyde Sutton, Ness City; Cinda Flax, Utica; Philip Martin, Ellis; Gene Knieling, Rush Center; Brian Hammeke, Rozel; and Ron Gruber, Lewis.

When the cooperative is successful and profitable, allocations are made to Member-Owners in the form of capital credits. Total Capital Credit Retirements over the last 5 years amounts to just over $6,000,000!

By being a Member-Owner, you are assured of doing business with a local company that seeks to serve our communities and strengthen our rural economy. GBT’s employees live and work here, our children and grandchildren attend school here, and you’ll find our employees serving on local School Boards, Fair Boards, 4-H, Chamber, Church Councils, Volunteer Fire Departments, and more. Chances are if you attend a local event, GBT will be a sponsor, donating dollars and time to the organizations in our communities.

Because of you, our Member-Owners and Customers, GBT is able to positively impact our local economies—your money stays local and is re-distributed to you through capital credits, donations, and local involvement—by a company which exists to serve you. Now that’s Economic Power!

The Fiber Road Less Traveled – GBT’s 600-Mile Fiber Quest in Rural Kansas

Community, Internet

If you drove from Kansas City to Denver, it would take you almost 9 hours and a little over 600 miles to get there. Now what does this distance have to do with GBT? That’s the approximate amount of fiber optic cabling, 600 miles, that GBT is installing to homes and businesses in our Rural Part of Kansas, just in 2023! Fiber optics is hard to visualize because it’s just a small piece of glass the size of a human hair, but if we stay on the roads theme, GBT is essentially laying 600 miles of a 1,000-lane highway to 100s of rural residents so they have the same access to broadband and the world that many of us take for granted. As one resident who was recently connected to fiber Internet services conveyed to GBT, “For the first time since we have lived in the country, we now know what it’s like to have Internet that we can do anything we want with. We can watch streaming shows on our tv, my kids can do homework on their tablets, and my husband and I can browse or search the Internet all at the same time. It is amazing!” “For the first time since we have lived in the country, we now know what it’s like to have Internet that we can do anything we want with. We can watch streaming shows on our TV, my kids can do homework on their tablets, and my husband and I can browse or search the Internet all at the same time. It is amazing!” With 600 miles of fiber being buried in the ground, and hundreds of homes that need to be connected, planning, timing, and implementation is key. GBT understands everyone is excited and wants to be first to get fiber, and it is our goal to get fiber deployed as quickly as possible, but not at the expense of quality, safety, or reliability. When deploying fiber, many just see the final part of the process when GBT technicians install the fiber service inside the home, but few realize that staking, right-of-way permits, ordering and receiving of materials, main-line and drop-to-the-home construction, installation of central office electronics,...

2023 Annual Meeting Recap

Community, Cooperative, Press Releases

GBT held its 70th Annual Meeting Wednesday, April 19, 2023, at the GBT Headquarters in Rush Center. A drive-thru meeting was conducted, with 124 Members receiving an Annual Meeting booklet of 2022 Reports, along with a ballot. Board member elections were held for District 2 – Ellis, McCracken and District 4 – Alexander, Bazine, Rush Center. Election Results: District 2 – Philip Martin; District 4 – Gene Knieling. All members attending were provided a BBQ meal and door prizes. Congratulations to the following winners of the Special Drawing Prizes: Retirement of $250 Capital Credit – Paul Jost, Rush Center Retirement of $250 Capital Credit – Daryl North, Ellis 1 Month Free Internet – Lavern Schneider, Albert 1 Month Free Internet – Terry Seltmann, Rush Center $70 GBT Bill Credit – Joey Bevitt, Rush Center $70 GBT Bill Credit – Clarence Foos, Bazine $70 GBT Bill Credit –Harry & Helen Thorne, Rozel $70 GBT Bill Credit –Corey & Cari Torrez, Rush Center $70 GBT Bill Credit –Brandi Seltmann, Bazine $70 GBT Bill Credit –Hoop & Twila Higgins, McCracken $70 GBT Bill Credit – Don Hanhardt, Albert $70 GBT Bill Credit – Fred Flax, Ransom $70 GBT Bill Credit – Cynthya Billinger, Lewis $70 GBT Bill Credit – Linda Bahr, Otis

GBT Annual Meeting 2023 – Letter from the General Manager

Community, Cooperative

I am grateful to have this yearly opportunity to connect with our members and share cooperative happenings. It allows GBT representatives to visit and provide members with our successes, challenges, finances, and plans for the future. For 70 years, all our member-owners have trusted us to connect you to the world. Although we call this an annual meeting, it is really a celebration for you, our member-owners. This year embarks a special celebration as the cooperative not only celebrates its 70th year in business, but also anticipates crossing the finish line on connecting every member with FIBER!!! The Cooperative covers over 3,200 square miles with 1.6 members per mile, so this mark comes with a lot of pride from the GBT team. This kind of accomplishment doesn’t happen without a vision that has covered many decades of sound leadership, planning, and commitment from past and present Board members and employees. Over the last couple decades, that vision includes investing in fiber; GBT believes a fiber investment is one that keeps the future in mind. A fiber network transforms rural areas by strengthening commerce, advancing education, enabling precision agriculture, and improving healthcare. The GBT Board gave the direction to begin plowing fiber to its members in 2007, and now in 2023, we are 97% complete! GBT has invested over $46 million dollars in fiber to the home builds since the Board directed back in ‘07. In 2022, the rural areas of Garfield and nearly all the Bison exchange were completed, along with the City of St. John. It is our objective to build the rural areas of Burdett, Otis, Utica, and Beeler this year, along with the cities of Larned, Macksville, and Stafford. We can be grateful that our financial position comes at a time when we are on the cusp of a capital expenditure program of more than $15 million in fiber deployment. The cooperative feels very strongly about ensuring our members have a reliable and quality broadband...

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