THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 13, 1996 TAG: 9602130289
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HIGH POINT LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
North Carolina's two U.S. senators now can be reached via computer.
Both Sens. Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth recently added e-mail as one way constituents can communicate with them.
Of the 14-member North Carolina House delegation, 10 have e-mail addresses.
Peter Hans, communication director for Faircloth, said the senator's office receives 200 to 300 e-mail messages a week.
Messages from North Carolina receive written replies, but most e-mail from outside the state goes unanswered, Hans told the High Point Enterprise.
Hans said Faircloth's staff is designing a site for the senator on the Internet's World Wide Web. About a quarter of the Senate's members have them.
``The senator realizes that many people have access to that technology,'' Hans said. ``He doesn't surf the net, but he understands that lots of people want to communicate that way.''
Helms' office is working on setting up a web page, too, said Jimmy Broughton, Helms' administrative assistant.
Communications by e-mail have been available to Helms' office for about a month, Broughton said.
So far, Helms has received about 50 e-mail messages a day. About 75 percent of them are coming from North Carolina, Broughton said.
Broughton said Helms' office is responding to e-mail messages electronically to acknowledge that the transmission was received.
If the sender includes a name and mailing address, he said, a written response to questions or requests follows later. MEMO: Here's how to reach Faircloth and Helms on e-mail:Here's how to reach
Faircloth and Helms on e-mail:
Lauch Faircloth: senator(at)faircloth.senate.gov
Jesse Helms: jesse-helms(at)helms.senate.gov
Substitute the ``at'' sign for (at).
by CNB