This has been an interesting year for me and my brother. Due to the coronavirus, we started taking our classes at Lomega using distance learning last spring and continued through this fall because of family health issues.

It’s not always easy to take classes online, but it is a lot easier when you have good access to the internet.

We are lucky. Pioneer Telephone Cooperative does a great job and we have a good high-speed connection at our house, but it takes a lot of money to get broadband out into rural areas.

On top of that, even if you can get broadband, it still takes money and equipment to hook your house up so that your child can do distance learning.

Some money has come out to Pioneer and other rural phone cooperatives and companies, but more needs to be done.

Maybe we need to treat broadband the way we did rural electricity in the 1930’s.

It took a lot of time and money to get all of rural Oklahoma hooked up to electricity. In fact my Grandma Jacque was in junior high in the late 1940’s before they got electricity where they lived northwest of Kingfisher.

Rural broadband can change rural Oklahoma the way rural electricity did. Not only can it help kids like me keep my grandmas safe during a pandemic, it can also help provide more economic opportunity by connecting us with the whole world.

Now that the smoke is finally starting to clear from the election, we need to keep our elected officials on their toes and make sure they are looking out for our rural areas. I think asking them what they plan on doing to help bring more broadband service to rural Oklahoma is a great place to start.

Thank you.

Madeleine Pope Loyal