Pre-Plowing Activity

1. Foreman will call the customer or landowner if it is a rental property to find out about or clarify any private utilities that they have listed on the drop permit. Example: Underground pet barriers, sprinkler systems, privately buried electric line to out buildings. During this time, please answer phone calls from phone numbers you may not recognize. If foremen are unable to make contact with homeowners, installation of services will need to be rescheduled.
2. The foreman will mark the proposed route of the service line with white flags or white paint. If they have any questions or concerns, they may call you from your yard and walk through the route with you on the phone to make sure both parties know what that exact route is. At that time, they will call in the Gopher State One locates as is required by law. It takes two business days before we can legally begin construction. This call to Gopher State One alerts the other utilities to come and located their facilities on the property. Example: Other phone or cable tv providers, natural gas, and/or electric companies.
3. Within a two-week time period, the crews will be back to plow the service line in.

Post Plowing Activity

1. Once the service line is plowed, sometimes that same day or up to a few days later, a splicer will come to splice the newly plowed service line at the pedestal and mount the NID/protector to the house so it is ready for the installation of services inside the home. There are times this is left for the PBC technician to do. This is determined on a case-by-case basis.
2. A clean-up crew will come to do any necessary clean up to your yard. We have one clean-up crew that restores for all services lines that are plowed in our service area. These are not necessarily all grouped together so it may be a while before you see them back to tidy up.

For all of the things listed above, the customer DOES NOT need to be present unless they want to be there. The only time that someone will need access to inside your home would be the day of your actual install with Paul Bunyan Communications to start your services.
If you have any questions regarding the drop process or services available at your location, please call our Engineering Department at (218) 444-1170

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We are excited to announce our Apple Service Center in Grand Rapids is now open at our new office at 510 SE 21^st Street!

 The Apple Service Center provides both in-warranty and out of warranty service on Apple products and computer repair including hardware or software problems, spill damage, screen replacement, virus removal, upgrades, and accessories. It is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. -5:30 p.m.

“It’s exciting to open up another Apple Service Center. People rely on a lot of devices and when they don’t work properly it isn’t fun.  When that happens, we’re here to help.” said Leo Anderson, Paul Bunyan Communications Technology Experience Manager.

“We’ve built one of the largest all-fiber optic rural gigabit networks in the country that offers the fastest internet speeds available.  It will provide optimum performance for the devices our customers use but not if they aren’t working right.  Now they can bring them to our Grand Rapids Apple Service Center to get checked out,” said Gary Johnson, Paul Bunyan Communications CEO/General Manager

The first of three consecutive weekends of GigaZone Gaming Championship 5 was held Saturday, April 10 with the first tournament, Overwatch 6v6.

Team YES won the Overwatch 6v6 Tournament and the top prize of $1,800.  Team YES team members are Kelly Whipple, Kylie Elliott, Tien Nguyen, Connor Broderick, and Coby LaCroix from Bemidji and Isaak R Smith from Deer River.

Second place and $1,200 went to The Clean Up Crew with team members Thomas Berge of Bemidji, Ethan Hunt and Ewan Newbold of Pine River, Tristan Jourdain from Red Lake, Jacob Peterson from Red Lake Falls, and Kohl Belgrade-Gotchie from Akeley.

Third place and $600 was won by ISSA Team with team members all from Bemidji including Tristan Lawrence, Naziah Matt, Devon Rainey, James Jones, Matoskah Veaux, and Dakota Veaux.

In addition to the Overwatch tournament, there were door prize drawings throughout the day and the CosPlay Contest started accepting entries.  Madden 21 is the featured tournament this Saturday, April 17 and Super Smash Bros is the featured Tournament on Saturday, April 24. The tournaments are free to play and open to anyone who lives within the 218 area code but registration is required at www.gigazonegaming.com  Anyone interested in either tournament should register now before they are full.

The purpose of the 2021 Caucus Election is to select up to two pre-qualified candidates to seek election to be your district’s representative on the Paul Bunyan Communications Board of Directors. Directors serve a five-year term.  If there are less than two pre-qualified candidates seeking election to the Board of Directors from the same district (an uncontested district election), no Caucus Election for that district need nor will be held.

District 3 Caucus

The current director for District 3 is past President Kathy Peterson and she was the only applicant.  As a result, her uncontested director re-election to the board for District 3 will be ratified by the members at the annual meeting.

District 8 Caucus

The current director for District 8 is Board Vice President Jim Sutton and he was the only applicant.  As a result, his uncontested director re-election to the board for District 8 will be ratified by the members at the annual meeting.

The purpose of the 2021 Caucus Election is to select up to two pre-qualified candidates to seek election to be your district’s representative on the Paul Bunyan Communications Board of Directors. Directors serve a five-year term.  If there are less than two pre-qualified candidates seeking election to the Board of Directors from the same district (an uncontested district election), no Caucus Election for that district need nor will be held.  Due to pandemic social distancing mandates and guidelines, the Cooperative has determined that there will be no in-person Caucus Election meetings held in 2021.  Instead, for any district in which there is a contested election, members of the district will receive their ballot and instructions on how to vote by mail.  Members in a district with a contested election will have the option to vote online or by mail.

Based on the results of the Caucus Election for each district, the names of up to two candidates are listed on the ballot to be voted on by the general membership of the Cooperative.  Votes are tallied at the Annual Meeting, presently scheduled for May 26, 2021.  The candidate from each respective district with the greatest number of votes from the general membership is elected as the Director for such district.

Article III, Section 3 of the Cooperative Bylaws, amended last year by the general membership, requires any member interested in being a Director-candidate to submit a candidate packet to the Cooperative at least 15 business days prior to the Caucus Election date.  This enables the Cooperative to properly verify the eligibility of all candidates to serve as a member of the Board if elected.  Members interested can find the candidate packet and additional information online at https://paulbunyan.net/cooperative/documents/ The deadline for completed Director-candidate packets to be returned to the Cooperative for District 8 and District 3 is Tuesday, March 2 at 3 p.m.

District 3 Caucus Election voting deadline is Tuesday, March 23 at 3 p.m. (if necessary)

The current director for District 3 is past President Kathy Peterson and she has expressed her intent to seek re-election.

District 8 Caucus Election voting deadline is Tuesday, March 23 at 3 p.m. (if necessary)

The current director for District 8 is Board Vice President Jim Sutton and he has expressed his intent to seek re-election.

Here are the ways you can pay your bill with us.  If you have any questions, contact us.

The 2020 Annual Business Meeting of Paul Bunyan Rural Telephone Cooperative was held June 24. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the business of the members to be conducted at the Annual Meeting was done exclusively by mail ballot.  The proposed bylaw amendments were approved with 1844 in favor, 47 against.