Express your Appreciation on Veterans Day! November 2015 Vol. 20, No. 11

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1 A Monthly Newsletter for the Subscribers of Golden Belt Telephone and GBT Communications Connection November 2015 Vol. 20, No. 11 Rush Center Office P.O. Box Lincoln Rush Center, KS :30 am - 5:00 pm Monday through Friday Ness City Office 114 W. Main Ness City, KS :00 am - 5:00 pm Monday through Friday Ellis Office 101 W. 9th Ellis, KS Noon - 6:00 pm Monday through Thursday Noon - 5:00 pm Friday Larned Office 122 W. 5th Larned, KS :00 am - 3:00 pm Mon., Tues., Thurs., & Fri. Noon - 6:00 pm Wednesday Help Desk: November is a time that people reflect on the blessings they have surrounding them, and we here at GBT are no different. The GBT team would like to say Thanks to each and every one of our loyal customers current and past. Without you, our customers, we Join us for STAFFORD CHAMBER C FFEEHOUR Nov. 20th, 9am-10am Express your Appreciation on Veterans Day! Veterans Day is a day set aside to honor all the men and women who served in our military and contributed to our national security. If you know a veteran or a current member of the military, please take a minute to say thank you. would not be the growing local technology company that we are today! We take pride in knowing that our staff are part of the communities we serve, work, live and play in, and GBT is grateful to have the opportunity to give back to so many of these areas we serve. With the holidays approaching GBT wants to make your life a little less stressful. This month we have a great opportunity for you to help ease your mind with our November Security promotion. See page 2 for more details. We hope you have a great Thanksgiving with family and friends.

2 For the month of November, GBT is offering buy 3 cameras get the 4th camera FREE! $ave up to $100 off! November Directory Updates ALEXANDER Alexander Wind Farm, LLC DXP Enterprises Inc BAZINE Audrey Dome Aaliah McHenry BISON Lori Maneth BROWNELL Cedar Bluff Wind LLC Cedar Bluff Wind LLC Cedar Bluff Wind LLC Cedar Bluff Wind LLC Kristina Brooke AMC Negotiations Are you a Walking Dead fan? As your cable provider, GBT is working hard to keep the programming that our customers want and love, including channels like AMC which hosts one of the most watched television series of all time, The Walking Dead, which is currently in its sixth season. This time of year, GBT will be entering renegotiations with several broadcasters including AMC, to continue to provide these channels to you our customer at an affordable cost. During these talks, we expect these broadcasters to demand that you, our valued customer, must pay a significantly increased fee per month for us to have the right to continue carrying their channel on our line-up. We assure our customers that GBT is going to fight these broadcaster demands in order to keep our cable rates as low as possible and ( ) continue to deliver the channels you have come to expect from us. GBT customers are our top priority, and while we will be working to keep these channels at an affordable cost, we can t promise that the broadcasters will do the same. If negotiations are not agreed upon before December 31st, there is a possibility GBT will no longer carry the AMC channel. BURDETT Mona L Archuleta Meri Lee James Thompson II ELLIS Peggy Blackburn Kasandra Bliss Ben & Jacy Milbourne LACROSSE Robert Barlow LEWIS Addie Coss Raymond Fischer Nancy Ponce Justin Thiel Rental MCCRACKEN Eli & Katrena Baez NESS CITY Eileen Hoff Kerr Farm Management Matthew McAllister Kellie Nunnelley Joann Oliver OTIS Cordell Monahan ROZEL Randy Blattner Garrett Vratil RUSH CENTER Lori Woods TIMKEN Corey Torrez

3 Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday *Larned Turkey Dinner *St. Joseph Dinner Veterans Day C FFEEHOUR STAFFORD CHAMBER Thanksgiving *Ness City Soup Supper GBT Offices Closed with GBT 9am-10am GBT Offices Closed *Rush County Chamber Christmas Kickoff November *See details below COMMUNITY CALENDAR Find Your Digits Be sure to look through the newsletter each month for two phone numbers in parenthesis. If it s your number call our office to claim your prize! October Digits Winners Congrats to our October winner(s): John & DeAnn Ficken - Bison We are pleased to serve our local communities and would like to include your community event in our newsletter.submission for this section is due by the 10th of the previous month. Please mail items to: GBT-Attn: Marketing PO Box 229 Rush Center, KS kbaalmann@gbtlive.com *Upcoming Community Events Larned UMC Annual Turkey Dinner Sunday, November 8th, 11:30-1:30pm / 701 Main - Larned Tickets: Adults $12 / Ages 6-12 $6.00 / Ages 5 & under FREE Advanced ticket purchase is suggested, Call Beth Pinkston at Ness City Community Soup Supper Wednesday, November 11th, 5:30-6:30pm / Community (Old Legion) Building W Main GBT has teamed up with the Frank Stull American Legion Auxiliary Unit #152 honoring our Veterans. The Auxiliary will prepare and serve a Soup supper with desserts prior to a program saluting our Veterans. St Joseph s Catholic Church Thanksgiving Dinner Sunday, November 15th, 11am-1pm / School Basement - Liebenthal Tickets: Adults $10.00 / Ages 4-8 $4.00 Raffle prizes including cash, gift baskets and more. Purchase raffle tickets at the dinner or by calling Barb (785) or LouAnn (785) Rush County Chamber of Commerce Christmas Kickoff Celebration Friday, November 27th, 6:00 pm / Grass Park - LaCrosse Santa Claus will be there at 6 p.m. Enjoy refreshments of hot dogs, cookies, and hot chocolate, along with great raffle prizes! Event will be held in conjunction with The Rush County Historical Society s Olde Fashioned Christmas held at the museum complex. A trolley will be available to take people from Grass Park to the Museum Complex. 3

4 Welcome Channel 55 GBT adds Oxygen Channel 55 to our cable line up. Similar to Lifetime and WE TV, this channel features programming targeted at women, including original reality television series, acquired scripted series and feature films. September Photo Contest Lifeline Recertification Our September Photo Contest winner was Mark Johnson from Burdett who captured this great Rustic door in a Limestone building. Turkey Hunting It s time to count... throughout this issue of the Connection there are many turkeys. Can you count them? When you find them all, us at custservice@ gbta.net with the total number of turkeys by November 15th and you will be entered into a drawing to win a $10 gift certificate from GBT redeemable towards any retail item or bill credit at any of our four locations. Be sure to stop in and see what we have to offer! If you currently receive a discount on your phone bill from the Lifeline Program, you are required to recertify to keep your discount. Each year, you MUST complete a certification to show that you are eligible to keep your discount. This year we have partnered with the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to help you with your certification. If you do not complete this certification, you will lose your discount. Timeline: In October USAC will send you a letter with instructions. You must complete your certification within 30 days of the letter date. If you don t complete certification within 30 days of the letter date, you will lose your discount. Process - There are three ways to complete your certification: 1. Call the phone number on the letter to tell USAC that you are eligible for your discount. 2. Go to the website listed on the letter to fill out a form with information showing you are still eligible for your discount. 3. Complete the paper form that is sent with the letter and mail it to USAC to show that you are still eligible for your discount. Contact our office at if you have questions about this requirement. 4

5 Lifeline Watch Recertification TV Everywhere Apps With our WatchTVEverywhere list continuing to grow, we encourage our customers to sign up for this free service. All you have to do to signup is: Go to Select your TV Provider: GBT Communications, Inc. Select Register on the home page You will need two pieces of information to register 1. Your account number (with leading zeros found on your GBT bill) 2. The correct spelling of the last name on your account You will get an verifying your address and you are ready to Watch TV wherever! Once you sign up, you are able to download any of the following apps to watch live TV on that channel by simply logging into your WatchTVEverywhere account. ABC ABC Family C-Span Cartoon Network CMT CNN Comedy Central Disney Channel Disney Junior Disney XD E Watch ESPN Food Network Fox Business Fox News Fox Sports FX FXX Golf Hallmark Channel HLN HGTV MSNBC MTV Nat Geo Wild National Geographic Channel NBC NBC News NBC Sports NFL Nick Jr NICK QVC Spike Stingray Music SyFy TBS TCM TNT Travel Channel Tru TV USA VH1 Community Support with GBT GBT prides itself on the importance of our local presence and support to the communities we serve. October was a busy month, and we were happy to participate in many of our towns community events. This year we were able to participate in Otis-Bison, La Crosse and Ness City Homecoming parades. We also participated in the Stafford Oktoberfest & Salsa competition, which was a great turnout. GBT also sponsored a Chamber Coffee and Hot Dog feed in Larned to help Larned Chamber Coffee gift basket winner Dr. Lindsey VanSickle and her son We hope you saw our truck in one of the parades, stopped to taste our salsa in Stafford, came by for donuts or a hot dog in Larned, or enjoyed the remodeled office in Rush Center. As much as we would love to be at every event in each of our 23 towns it s hard to make them all, so if we missed your event, we apologize and hopefully we will catch the next one! 5 celebrate our 1-Year Anniversary of the GBT office in that community. We sponsored two lunch events and gave away free Pizza in Ness City at Pizza Plus and free Pie in Larned at Sweets-N-Eats. Another big event that was held in October was the 40-Year Re- Stafford Oktoberfest and Salsa Competition Larned Chamber Coffee Hour Grand Opening of the Rush Center GBT location. We had a great turnout with refreshments, prizes, retail discounts and much more. Thank you to all who came out to help celebrate our special day! Rush Center 40-Year Re-Grand Opening GBT Truck at one of the Homecoming parades

6 Security & Camera Systems With the holidays approaching and many people traveling, it is always nice to have a watchful eye over your home when you are gone. With GBT security, you can have exactly that with much more. Many people might think Security Systems are too expensive or that the only benefit is for property surveillance. These assumptions might have been true five or ten years ago, but today these systems have become very affordable and can do more than just record the bad guys. Want reassurance that your kids made it home from school and are doing ok? With our security & camera systems you can receive up-to-the second updates alerting when someone has made it home and check on them whenever you want using a smart-phone or desktop application. The convenience and benefits are endless. Need the ability to check on a nearby shop or barn to ensure your animals are doing ok, look no further than GBT s camera systems. Don t forget, many insurance companies will give you a discount, sometimes up to 20% on your homeowners insurance, when you install a home monitoring system. The Benefits are endless ( ) and in sticking with the giving theme, for the month of November GBT is offering buy 3 cameras, get the 4th camera free. Check out more details on page 2! White Chocolate Pumpkin Snicker-Doodles Submitted by Marilyn Seidel from La Crosse Ingredients: 1/2 cup butter 1/4 cup packed brown sugar 1 cup sugar, divided 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 6 Tablespoons pumpkin puree 1 and 1/2 cups flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice 1/2 cup white chocolate chips Directions: 1. Melt the butter in the microwave. In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and 1/2 cup granulated sugar together until smooth. Stir in the vanilla and pumpkin. Set aside. 2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well. The dough will be very soft. Fold in white chocolate chips. Cover the dough and chill for at least 30 minutes. Chilling is mandatory. 3. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. 4. Measure dough with a small cookie scoop and shape into balls. Mix together the remaining 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Roll each of the dough balls in the cinnamon-sugar mixture and place on baking sheets. Slightly flatten each dough ball. 5. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes. The cookies will look under baked, but they are done. Remove from the oven and press a few more white chocolate chips onto the tops, if desired. With my spatula, I gently flatten the cookies out when I take them out of the oven. 6. Allow the cookies to cool for at least 10 minutes on the cookie sheet. *I always double this recipe, as it doesn t make but a couple dozen If you have questions or comments about this newsletter or any of our services, please us at custservice@gbta.net. Kelly Baalmann, Editor Kyle Bahr, Editor Verda Flinn, Graphic Designer 6