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!

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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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