THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300344
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CAPRON LENGTH: 110 lines
In a cluttered cubbyhole above the worn farm store that Ira ``Pete'' Barham has operated here for almost 48 years, a jarring contradiction becomes evident.
Hunkering over a computer atop a gray metal desk, Barham zips through several screens of futures prices for corn, wheat and soybeans - all fed to him via satellite from the Chicago Board of Trade.
``In this business, you need to keep in touch,'' he says.
But the mayor of this western Southampton County town, population 144, also has calendars on his office walls that date as far back as 1976.
``We haven't gotten around to taking it down,'' Barham says. ``We're not exactly in the fast lane here.''
In many ways this contradiction summarizes rural towns like Capron that are both connected to the rest of the world and set apart from it. This is particularly true when it comes to telecommunications.
In Capron, several residents have satellite dishes that can haul down hundreds of TV networks from all over the world. The town's retirees and working stiffs, punching 800 numbers on their telephones, can check their mutual-fund balances and order coats from distant catalogers any time of the day.
But until recently, Capron's townsfolk could call hardly anywhere else in their county without paying a long-distance phone charge. And now, as most of Southampton is set to join the new 757 area code that becomes mandatory for southeastern Virginia on Saturday, Capron will stay stuck in the old 804.
The dividing line for 757 and 804 cuts between Capron and Courtland, the county seat eight miles to the east. So starting Saturday, people in the towns, which won no-toll calling to each other in July 1995, must dial each other's area code on top of the seven-digit number.
Calls to Courtland will still be toll-free. But having to dial the extra digits contributes to the feeling that ``we are isolated out here,'' says Capron town clerk Miriam Francis. ``We don't think it's fair.''
Capron's position in a sort of area-code no man's land is one of the inevitable loose ends that result when codes are divided. Southampton is one of five counties - the others being Surry, Sussex, Prince George and New Kent - that will be split between the 804 and 757 codes.
That all are rural is no coincidence. The phone companies devising the area-code split decided that the neatest way to carve the old 804 in two was through the hinterlands separating Hampton Roads and the Richmond area. So it's 757 to the east, 804 to the west. Charlottesville, Danville and Lynchburg will also remain in 804.
Counties such as Southampton were split between two codes because the boundary that the phone companies agreed to also conformed to the borders of regional calling areas set up more than a decade ago when AT&T Corp. was broken up. These calling areas don't always follow county lines.
Compared to other area code splits, the decision on 757 was non-controversial. The phone companies are so embroiled over a proposed 1999 split of the 703 code in Northern Virginia that they've dumped that matter in the laps of state regulators.
In Capron, nobody tried organizing opposition to the town's severance from the rest of the county and 757. But folks in this flatlands town marked by sprawling turreted houses and grain silos say that's largely because they're tired of battling their local phone company, GTE, over service issues.
Compared to earlier problems, the area-code split is a small inconvenience, says Charlie Settle, a retired banker and community leader.
``We'd kind of like to get along with GTE at this point,'' he says.
The people of Capron and other Southampton County towns have been dealing with an antiquated and confusing patchwork of local telephoning rules for many years.
Capron can call Courtland toll-free. Courtland can call Capron and Franklin. Boykins can call Franklin. No Southampton community can call every other town in the county. Much the same situation exists in rural counties across Virginia.
Carolyn Gillette, manager of Bank of Southside Virginia's Capron branch, says the rules affect everything from friendships to commerce in the county. People in Capron don't socialize or do business as much with people in towns that are a toll call away, she says.
On the positive side, the cost of calling helps teach financial discipline, Gillette says. She requires her daughter to pay for her long-distance calls to high school friends elsewhere in the county - an average of about $40 a month. ``She has taken baby-sitting jobs, when she probably would rather do something else, so she can pay for it,'' Gillette says.
The county's residents would like wider local calling areas - but it's a double-edged situation.
Whenever new exchanges are added, the basic monthly phone bill goes up. Capron residents paid another $2.21 a month - a total of $8.90 - in basic fees after they voted to add Courtland to their calling circle. But most folks figured the extra cost was worth it to be able to call toll-free to the county government and Southampton's two high schools, which are located in Courtland.
Capron's leaders also mounted a drive to add Franklin to their local calling area. But that effort failed when Franklin residents rejected the idea a few years ago. They didn't think it was worth paying a higher basic phone charge for the right to call Capron toll-free.
GTE spokeswoman Lacy Yeatts says her company is trying to improve the calling conditions in Capron and other rural towns it serves. ``It's an issue we've been looking at for many years,'' she says.
But when it comes to the area-code split, there was no perfect answer. ``The line had to be drawn somewhere,'' Yeatts says. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II/The Virginian-Pilot
Ira ``Pete'' Barham, left, the mayor of Capron, visits with his
neighbor, J.P. Simmons, while talking on a bag phone in the doorway
of Barham's feed and seed and hardware store.
A sign identifies the Town Hall in this little community with a
population of 144.
It's on U.S. 58.
Color graphic by Robert Voros/The Virginian-Pilot
[a map showing who uses area code 757 and 804]
[For complete copy, see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: AREA CODE 757 804