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Show Axel Birch Sets 25-Year 25-Year Service Award From Te! Go Axel Birch, local Mt. States Telephone manager, recently wa -honored after having com-Dieted com-Dieted 25 years service with Ine company. Actually service with Mt States which began Jan 1 1930 does not include all the time Mr Birch has spent working work-ing for telephone companies. After graduating from the Roosevelt High School, Mr. Birch took enough college training train-ing at the University of Utan to qualify him for a. teaching position. For one year ne taught at Neola for a salary of $60 00 per month for 8 montns. This was during the 1921-22 school vear He accepted the job of roust-about for the old Uintah Telephone Co. in the spring of 1922 at $100 per month, and has been in the business ever S1IB?rch's parents moved to the Basin from New York in 1906 to be among the pioneers of this area. Axel was only six at this time and since there were no schools established he had to wait a year before em school. e enterij. When the Mt. states T ' phone Co. purchased thl ests of the Uintah Basin T'r' phone Co. on Jan. l loo'' Birch became one of thre ;'Ir' ployees, his wife, Afton C- ''" whom he married in lg??'''' chief operator. The mana ' the company was then 1r ' in Vernal until 1934, ws;;l Roosevelt exchange' was"11''' arated from Vernal and b ?"' a separate unit. During thp "' days, Axel did just about ''! job there was from sweeping"' office, carrying in coal tn v ing a general combination ;',' maintenance man In 193Q (, were less than 150 ph'onJ'"' the Roosevelt exchange ''" In 1939 Mr. Birch was r moted to manager of the Rf7' velt exchange which inci,?' the Duchesne area. He ri'-I ri'-I O. K. Farthingham. Today tC are 23 employees on the pa-S and they now have aDproxhr''" ly 1200 telephone, in adition ' servicing about 800 REA t' phones. e'- Mr. Birch has been active ; civic affairs, being a mem'-l of the Chamber of Cornier' Lions Club and is affiliated,'" the Masonic order. The have one child, a daughter y. Carol Learning, of Salt Citv. and one granddaughter' |