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Show v o South Ceutid Utah Supplement To: Gunnison Valley News - The Salina Sun Garfield County News - The Richfield Reaper VOLUME NUMBER 3 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 12 1982 Friendly Phone Operator's Voice Nears Phaseout assistant By Loren Webb Associate Editor staff public day to outlying towns, says Sarah Jensen, manager of operator service.! the 14 operators at the cordboard switchboard, continue to provide customers service. Operators take regular operator calls, handle emergency calls and announce time of During the summer, phone busines ! picks up, making it necessary to hire 20 e operators. The deer hunt and i any type of emergency increases the amount of calls handled by operators. ; manager, relations, Mountain Bell. The sound of operator, may I help you, may soon go the way of the wind at Mountain Bells Richfield operator office as it is targeted to be phased out 1983. It is the last of its by mid-Junkind in the state, says Steve Linton, Meanwhile, Each one of the operators works a different shift and no two people have the same shift or lunch break. This is so one or more persons are always on the switchboard. During the midnight shift only one person is required during the winter and two in the summer. full-tim- The service does have its limitations. On a change of phone number request, Mary Kay Outzen, another operator operators have to punch into a com- says every day is different. Its not puter for a recorded message to boring. Each call we take is different. respond. A caller cannot dial direct The people are different. She says after dialing the operator. Operators when they are able to help a person must place the call for the caller. place a call it gives them a sense of satisfaction, especially il it s a person Probably due to the planned phase- who called in Spanish and couldn't out of the service, no new operators speak a word of English. have been trained. Employees are utilized who have already been trained, says Jensen. Outzen says at Salt Lake City stations, operators have a supervisor on duty at all times, but in Richfield, is there to Operators use what is called a mark whether Mrs. Jensen work or on as usual. not, goes for distance supervise sense ticket used long calls. Operator marks in the area code We take a real pride in our work," the person is calling from, and mark Mrs. Outzen said. n or whether its a n call, then the number The operators work a 7!2 hour shift, of the person who is calling. except six hour shifts in the late evening. Jensen says after the switchit will be sad for them Third party billing or credit cards are board closes, (the operators) and will be a hardship listed and time is also recorded by for some to find other jobs. We will means of a timer, along with the miss the association of each other. charge. Coin operator or hotel placed calls are also marked. Jensen says when operators are alone in the building, and if anything The cordboard operator service also goes worng, they are responsible to features plugs on the board that are notify the plant department. We have punched into and out of jacks for the to be a jack of all trades. placing of calls. Key pulse keys are used for long distance calling assistance and to help place local calls. Elaine Burr, Salina, who has worked 18 years with Mt. Bell and began in the Salina office, remembers when the Operators learn certain phases in power went out over most of Utah in handling calls and also learn 1981, all the lights on their switchboard patience when faced with a crank call. lit up. The same thing happened on Today, most calls in the state go June 6, 1978 when the LDS Church gave through Provo or Salt Lake City the blacks the priesthood. With any operators because they have a TSPS kind of natural disaster, you cant board which allows callers to direct believe how business picks up. dial themselves. Meanwhile, the operators will keep doing their job. Jensen jokingly says, The Richfield switchboard has been the thing she likes about her job is the in service prior to and since 1957 when On the serious side, she admits wages. was Once finished. the present building the switchboard is closed down, 14 the association with the other operators makes the job enjoyable. We have a operators will be laid off; some will good bunch of employees. transfer. station-to-statio- person-to-perso- ' Four switchboard operators man the cordboard switching center in the Mountain Bell office in Richfield. The service is expected to gradually be phased Area Students Set Hugh OBrien, veteran actor and star g TV series Wyatt in Utah recently to arouse was Earp interest in his Youth Foundation. long-runnin- The Hugh OBrien Youth Foundation (HOBY) is geared to teach sophomores in high school about Americas free enterprise system and to acquaint leaders in the nation with the youth. Several students from South Central Utah will be attending a state HOBY convention this April 30, May 1 and May 2 in Salt Lake City. Students attending from this area are: Penny Sherwood, Panguitch High School; Francine Fullmer, Bryce Valley High School; Tammy Coleman, Escalante High School ; Diane Bessey ; Manti High School; Anna Maria Aagard, North Sanpete High School; Raymond Tate, Richfield High School and Joseph C. Adnerson, South Sevier High School. These young people will meet and talk with Utahs leaders as well as learn from Hugh OBrien personally about free enterprise. Im really looking forward to this You HOBY in Utah, said OBrien. people should be proud of your state and what it has to offer. The actor told how he came to start his youth foundation. In 1958 I was privileged to spend a week in Africa with Dr. Albert Schweitzer, he explained. His remarks and observations were both profound and stimulating. One particularly struck home with me since my (Continued on Page - Bighorn Sheep Get New Lease on Life For Hugh O'Brien Scholarship Event of the out, and be replaced by Salt Lake City and Provo operator sw itchboards. Change will be completed next year. 8) the Escalante River canyons. From 1976 through 1978, during three seasons, the Division moved 23 sheep, including about five rams, putting radio collars on 10 of them. Twelve desert bighorn sheep nine ewes and three rams began a new life in January on the rugged Kaiparowits Plateau not far from the Crossing of the Fathers where Father Escalante had noted in his journal in 1776 that tracks of the desert bighorn were as plentiful as those of domestic herds. At the last aerial census 10 sheep were counted, only two with collars, leading DWR personnel to conclude that the transplants had taken hold in the area and multiplied. The presence The twelve scrambled quickly and up the cliffs from their release point at Rock Creek bay on Lake Powell. They would make their sure-footed- of many tracks made them that their plan was working well-satisfi- since they only expect to count about percent from the air. 25 Each year the Division has continued with their transplant program which is funded solely through funds derived from the sale of a trophy ram permit to the highest bidder and donations from organizations such as the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep which last year contributed $5000. The trophy ram permit went lor Zz.ooo. This years transplant was the most successful of all with a total of 46 sheep moved, the highest number ever. The sheep were transplanted into three separate areas in southern Utah. Since the transplants first began, nineteen sheep had been the highest number (Continued on Page 8) home where their ancestors had roamed once in great numbers. They had been captured at Canyonlands National Park, transported by truck and then by boat up Lake Powell to the Kaiparowits Plateau. Though the desert bighorn was once common throughout the area, its suceptibility to disease, its inability to compete successfully with other animals for food, and of course its popularity as a hunting prize all contributed to its near extinction in its e habitat. once-nativ- The uranium boom of the 50s and 60s contributed to further diminishing its already much smaller numbers Until the last stronghold for the magnificent animals lay in the area betwen Blan-dinand Moab near the Colorado River. Mans activities had contributed both directly and indirectly to the reduced numbers of desert bighorn sheep populations. Now man was doing something to reverse the trend. g Prior to the beginning of transplating sheep in 1975, the Division of Wildlife Resources had only custodial management of the uncommonly agile and graceful animals according to Jim Guymon, regional game biologist for the southern region of the division located in Cedar City. T This meant that there was no active management of the desert bighorn and s it wasnt until the that the Division began conducting censuses and sueprvising hunting. mid-sixtie- r..-- xrf'Vt Terry Christensen, left, Richfield, regional leader for Utah Jaycees and TV star Hugh OBrien visited in r 'A , , vs I' 4.L. Salt Lake City when OBrien was here making arrangements for youth foundation program in May. Later, special funding led to the transplant plan which began functioning in 1976 when sheep were moved from the upper ends of Lake Powell into n wf Captured desert bighorn sheep is held firmly by Division of Wildlife Resources personnel prior to transplant to the Kaiparowits Plateau, home of tne animats were given collars which emit radio beam. t |