Message From the CEO: Celebrating 75 Years of BEK

“If it takes my last breath, we’re going to get a telephone someday out here.”

Those words belonged to Neil Beitelspacher, one of the founding members of our cooperative. He said them after being caught in a horrible snowstorm on his way home from church — a storm so bad that his wife and daughter had to stay behind, sheltering there while he got their horses home. The storm raged for four days, and for four days, Neil had no way to tell his family that he had made it home safely. Somewhere in that silence, in that fear, a determination was born that would eventually connect an entire region.

Neil wasn’t alone in that determination. Families across this area knew the same isolation and helplessness when there was no way to reach a doctor, neighbor, or loved one in an emergency. So, a group of them, including Neil Beitelspacher, decided to do something about it.

On October 3, 1952, at the Kidder County Courthouse, our Articles of Incorporation were signed, and BEK Communications Cooperative was born, built by local people, for local people, out of a simple but powerful belief that no family should ever again feel as alone as Neil did in that storm.

That was 74 years ago this fall. Next year, 2027, marks our 75th anniversary. It’s a milestone that few cooperatives, and even fewer rural businesses of any kind, ever get to reach — 75 years of a cooperative that has grown and changed with the times, from the earliest telephone lines strung across this countryside to the high-speed fiber connections we’re building today.

We want to begin commemorating this milestone now, and there’s no better time to start than next month. October is National Cooperative Month, a time set aside each year to recognize what makes the cooperative business model different. Our members live right here in our own communities, who own this cooperative together and have a say in its future.

None of what BEK is today would exist without founders like Neil Beitelspacher, who looked at an impossible problem and refused to accept that it had to stay that way. Before he passed, Neil offered this reflection on those early years, and I can think of no better way to close:

“When I look back, I would tell them never to give up and always look into the future."

That’s exactly what we intend to do — honor 75 years of never giving up, while we keep building toward whatever comes next for the members and communities we’re proud to serve.

Thank you for being part of this cooperative’s story.