JUNE 2011

105431

Published monthly for customers of SkyLine Membership Corporation and SkyBest Communications

www.SkyLine.orgwww.SkyBest.com

Area Students Receive NationalScholarships through SkyLine

Two Ashe County High School seniors – CourtneyBowers and Christopher Hamby – have been named winners of the 2011 Foundation for Rural Service Scholarship, and each student will receive $2,500.

Courtney is the daughter of Kevin and Donna Bowers of West Jefferson. She plans to attend Appalachian StateUniversity and study biology.

Christopher is the son of Gary andKristal Hamby of West Jefferson. He plans to attend East Carolina Universityand study engineering. These studentsalso will be recognized at their school’sAwards Day programs and at SkyLine’s Annual Meeting in September.

The one-year scholarships, sponsored locally by SkyLine, are presented by the Foundation for Rural Service, the advocacy arm of the National Telecommuni-cations Cooperative Association (NTCA), of which SkyLine is a member. Each year, a total of 30 scholarshipsare awarded nationwide to rural youth through this program: one per geographic region (among 10) of theNTCA membership and one to a student sponsored by a NTCA associate member. The remaining nineteen (19)awards are distributed proportionate to the number ofapplications received per region.

The FRS funds $2,000 of each scholarship with the sponsoring organization of each winning studentproviding a $500 match. This program is an outreach effort of the FRS, NTCA and SkyLine to sustain and enhance the quality of life in rural America.

A total of eight students have received FRS Scholar-ships since SkyLine became a local sponsor in 2006.

SkyBest to Sponsor Mountain Heart with Tony Rice atAn Appalachian Summer Festival

SkyBest is pleased to announce that it will be amongthe local corporate sponsors of An Appalachian SummerFestival, the monthlong summer arts program that featuresa variety of music, theatre, film and dance on the campusof Appalachian State University in Boone. For many years,the festival has been named one of the “Top 20 Events inthe Southeast” by the Southeast Tourism Society.

This year, SkyBest will be the lead corporate sponsorof Mountain Heart with Tony Rice on Friday, July 29, at

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SkyBest Joins with Verizon Wireless to Deliver 4G LTE Mobile

Broadband to Rural AreasSkyBest Communications, the wholly-owned

subsidiary of SkyLine, has entered into an agreement with Verizon Wireless as part of Clear Stream Communications, LLC. to participate in Verizon's LTE(Long Term Evolution) in Rural America Program. Through this program, Clear Stream customers will haveaccess to a 4G LTE network, the state-of-the-art globalstandard for high-speed wireless data services.

Clear Stream Communications, LLC., composed of SkyBest, Wilkes Telecommunications, Piedmont Communications and Carolina West Wireless, will leaseVerizon Wireless' 700 MHz upper C block wireless spectrum in the companies' service areas where VerizonWireless has not already constructed wireless network facilities. Verizon Wireless and Clear Stream will collaboratively build and operate a 4G LTE network using Clear Stream tower and backhaul assets and Verizon Wireless' core 4G LTE equipment.

The consortium currently serves customers in Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Watauga, Wilkes, Surry, Caldwell,Catawba, Burke and Alexander counties.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

CUSTOMER SERVICEALLEGHANY

372-1350ASHE

877-1350846-1350

AVERY

898-1350WATAUGA

963-1350865-1350

JOHNSON

739-1350OUTSIDE

LOCAL SERVICE AREA

1-800-759-2226

REPAIR SERVICELOCAL CALLS

611

WORTH NOTING:

Saturday, June 4Ashe County Heart Walk

1904 Courthouse, Jefferson, NC

Friday, June 10Cookbook - Deadline

for Recipes

STAFF:Jimmy Blevins

Chief Executive Officer

Kim ShepherdCustomer Service & Sales Manager

Karen P. PowellPublic Relations Director & Editor

Boone Business ExpoSkyLine’s Shauna

Powers and RobinMiller welcome a special guest fromChick-fil-A to the Sky-Line/SkyBest boothduring the annualBoone Business Expoheld at Boone Mall on

April 21. SkyLine was among numerous area businessesto showcase their products and services as well as to net-work with businesses, customers and potential customers.

60 Years of Great ConnectionsThis month, we round out the 1970s, which meant

continued customer growth and the need to expand thefacilities to serve new customers. In 1976 three of Sky-Line’s central offices in Ashe County expanded floorspace to accommodate new lines. At the time, the

company served approximately5,000 subscribers in Ashe. Another major milestone wasachieved in 1978 with the20,000th telephone service installation for the cooperative.SkyLine’s Ernest Severt installeda wall phone at the home ofIda Duvall in Baldwin.

Pictured at the installation with Mrs. Duvall were then-President FrankJames and then-General Manager JohnMcGuire.

SkyLine’s Commemorative

CookbookCelebrating 60 Years

Submit Your Favorite Recipe

Recipe of the Month

Old Fashioned Caramel CakeCake:

1 stick of margarine1 1/2 cups of sugar2 eggs2 cups flour1 cup buttermilk1 tablespoon of vinegar1 teaspoon of baking soda

Caramel Frosting:1 stick of margarine1 box of light brown sugar1/2 cup evaporated milk1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

Instructions:Cake: Cream margarine and sugartogether until light and fluffy. Addeggs, one at a time and continuebeating. Add flour alternately withbuttermilk. Blend well. Stir in sodawhich has been dissolved in vinegar.Pour into two greased and floured 9-inch cake pans. Bake at 350º for 25 minutes. Cool and then frost.

Caramel Frosting: Melt margarine inheavy saucepan. Add sugar and stirto blend well. Add milk and cook tosoft ball stage. Remove from heatand let stand five minutes. Add bak-ing powder and beat until smoothand creamy. The more you beat, thecreamier it will be. Frost cake.

Recipe submitted by SkyLine memberEdith Harless of Ashe County.

APPALACHIAN SUMMER FESTIVAL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Farthing Auditorium, and here’s a quick preview of thesetwo groundbreaking artists, as they share their innovativeways of altering traditional acoustic music to make a soundall their own.

Tony Rice spans the range of acoustic music, from blue-grass to jazz, to songwriter-oriented folk. He is one of thegreatest innovators in acoustic flat-picked guitar, and he hascollaborated and recorded albums with many bluegrass andfolk icons of this generation, including Joni Mitchell, BobbyHicks, Doyle Lawson and Todd Phillips. Rice remains one ofbluegrass’ top instrumentalists and singers, bringing origi-nality and vitality to everything he plays.

Mountain Heart has fearlessly revolutionized the wayacoustic music can be presented and played by combiningelements of rock, country, blues, jazz and bluegrass into anunmistakable high-energy sound. The band has appeared onthe revered stage of the Grand Ole Opry more than 100times and has shared the stage with acts ranging fromLynyrd Skynyrd and Brad Paisley to Alison Krauss and PattyLoveless.

To learn more about the Festival, visit www.appsummer.org,and to order tickets, contact the ASU Farthing AuditoriumBox Office at 1-800-841-ARTS (2787).

Send Us Your Recipes!If you’ve been meaning to send us

your favorite family recipe(s) but havenot yet done so, please take a few minutes to enter your recipe online(www.skyline60.com) or jot them downon a piece of paper and mail them to us at SkyLine Attn: Cookbook Project, PO Box 759, West Jefferson, NC 28694.

Deadline is Friday, June 10.Response to our cookbook project

has been tremendous! To the manymembers and customers who have already sent in your recipes, we thankyou! Our commemorative cookbook willbe a collection of family favorites fromacross our service area and beyond(those members and customers whowinter elsewhere and summer here–thank you too!).

We plan to have the cookbooksready for purchase in September, andwe’ll keep you posted on the size andprice of the cookbooks as we compilethe remaining recipes. All proceedsfrom the sale of the cookbooks will support food banks in our five-countyservice area of Alleghany, Ashe, Avery,Watauga and Johnson counties.

SKYBEST JOINS VERIZON CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

In addition to 4G LTE coverage in their local service area,Clear Stream customers will have access to Verizon Wireless'4G LTE network nationwide and those of other rural carriersin the program. Verizon Wireless customers also will be ableto roam on 4G LTE networks built by program participants.

"Our mission at SkyBest has always been to bring the latest in telecommunications technology to our customers,and we're ready to take a giant leap forward to secure accessto 4G technology through this program," said SkyBest ChiefExecutive Officer Jimmy Blevins.

"This consortium represents the latest in a series of pro-ductive endeavors we have forged with Wilkes and Piedmontto deliver state-of-the-art services to the region. By workingwith Verizon, we can accelerate the deployment of 4G and bepoised to address the future needs of our customers. We feelthis is a perfect complement to our fiber optic network and anatural progression for our current service offering."

Construction of the 4G LTE network in northwestern NorthCarolina will begin in 2012. Service will be widely availablethroughout the consortium's footprint by the end of 2013.

The regional consortium represents one of a handful ofrural carriers who have announced their participation in theLTE in Rural America Program. Other carriers--Bluegrass Cellular, Cellcom, Cross Wireless, Pioneer Cellular, Strata Networks and Thumb Wireless – have leased spectrum covering, in total, more than 1.8 million people and nearly58,000 square miles in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin and Utah.

"We are extremely pleased to have Clear Stream join theLTE in Rural America program. Together our companies willbe the first to offer a 4G LTE high speed mobile data networkin rural northwestern North Carolina," said Molly Feldman, VP of Business Development for Verizon Wireless. VerizonWireless launched its 4G LTE network last December in 38markets, covering one-third of all Americans, and in morethan 60 commercial airports. The company will expand its 4GLTE network to an additional 140 markets by the end of 2011,and plans to cover its entire 3G footprint with 4G LTE by theend of 2013.

The 4G LTE network provides speeds up to 10 timesfaster than current 3G networks, making it the fastest mobilenetwork in America for downloading songs and movies,video conferencing, multiplayer gaming and more.

Support Relay for LifeEvents in Your Area

Watauga County: June 17Alleghany County: June 24Ashe County: July 15Johnson County: July 15Avery County: August 5