The Down East Seniors Club held its March 30 meeting at the Blind Center of North Carolina in Washington. President Ed Hamrick led the meeting. Jim Hackney played for the singing of “God Bless America,” and Charlie Mike Smith gave the invocation. Dick Paul provided humor.

Stewart Rumley introduced Greg Coltrain, CEO and general manager of Tri-County Telecom. Tri-County is a 60-year-old telecommunications cooperative with offices located near Belhaven. It is a nonprofit business, has 17 employees and serves parts of Beaufort, Hyde and Washington counties. It offers telephone, cable TV and broadband (Internet) services. Using loans and grants from the 2010 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, they were able to replace their entire network of wire cable with fiber optic cable over a three-year period. The advantages of fiber optic cable include providing all three services on a single cable at much higher speeds than with wire, higher capacity of data and other services, less power required for transmission, and more reliability/less maintenance. Tri-County plans to expand their network to additional customers when their finances allow.

Mark Eakes won the 50/50 drawing.