Cornerstone Group © 2025 Thank You and Happy Holidays We are thankful for this time of year, as it’s the season set aside to celebrate gratitude and the spirit of giving. We sincerely thank you for supporting our local company and allowing us to provide your communications services. May you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a merry Christmas, with the warmth of the season filling your home and hearts. Our offices will be closed for the holidays on: Thursday, November 27 Thursday, December 25 Thursday, January 1 308 Frontage Road, Sebeka, MN 56477 800-945-2163 • 218-837-5151 wcphone@wcta.net • www.wcta.net Office Hours Mon-Fri, 8AM-4:30PM Customer Service Available 24/7 After Hours Repair 218-837-5151 Call Before You Dig Dial 8-1-1 THIS ISSUE 02 C lassic Christmas Movies and TV Specials 03 Gig Internet Greatly Enhances Online Activities 04 E mployee Spotlight: Ravin Saldana THE LINK NOV/DEC 2025 WE CONN E CT YOU , ON E N EWS L E T T E R AT A T I ME . A Gig Before Christmas It was Christmas Eve, and the Johnson family had gathered in the living room with the tree twinkling and the stockings hung with care. The kids were curled up with hot cocoa, streaming their favorite holiday movies. Mom was video calling Grandma to show off the gingerbread house while Dad tracked Santa’s sleigh on his tablet. Suddenly there was a loud thump from the chimney. Two red and white legs appeared, dangling as Santa tried to wiggle free. “Well,” Santa said with a chuckle, “I had to stop by early when I heard you signed up for Gig for Life with Manage MyWi-Fi.” He dusted off his suit, handed Dad a shiny new router, and said, “Now you’ll be able to stream, game, and video chat without buffering for just $99 per month.” The family cheered. There would be no more dead zones and no more arguments over slow internet. Even Santa took a selfie before climbing back up the chimney. “This,” he said with a wink, “is a gift that keeps on giving.” Give your family the same holiday magic with Gig for Life and Manage MyWi-Fi fromWest Central. Call 218-837-5151 today.
Bring Back Memories With Classic Christmas Movies and TV Specials Feast on These Fun Turkey Facts At your Thanksgiving feast this year, you can wow your family with these fun facts about the main course: • Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be named the official United States bird. • Wild turkeys can run as fast as 20 miles per hour. And they can fly at speeds up to 55 miles per hour — but only for short distances. • Every Thanksgiving, Americans eat about 675 million pounds of turkey, with the average holiday turkey weighing about 15 pounds. • Turkeys can see movement almost a hundred yards away. • Male turkeys gobble, while females make a clicking noise. • They can see in color, but don’t have good night vision. • They typically have 3,500 feathers when they reach full maturity. • Most wild turkeys live in hardwood forests with grassy areas. Here’s a bonus piece of trivia: On average, the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line answers questions from 100,000 people during November and December. If you need help from turkey experts, call 1-800-BUTTERBALL or text 844-877-3456. The holiday season tends to be a sentimental time with strong connections to the past. Maybe you always bake your grandmother’s famous Christmas cookie recipe or hang ornaments on the tree made by your children or grandchildren years ago. Another way to travel down memory lane is to watch the Christmas movies and TV specials that were especially meaningful to you during earlier chapters in your life. They can take you back in time faster than a one-horse open sleigh goes dashing through the snow! Be sure to set aside some time this season to gather the family, pop some popcorn and enjoy your favorite Christmas classics at home. On www.rottentomatoes.com, they share their top 10 Christmas movies ever. Are your favorites on this list? • It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) • Miracle on 34th Street (1947) • Holiday Inn (1942) • The Shop Around the Corner (1940) • Stalag 17 (1953) • The Apartment (1960) • The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) • Die Hard (1988) • Arthur Christmas (2011) • A Christmas Story (1983) When it comes to Christmas TV specials, the golden age was arguably during the 1960s, which produced the beloved animated classics below. Watch them and the floodgates of nostalgia are sure to open. • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) • A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) • How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) • The Little Drummer Boy (1968) • Frosty the Snowman (1969) Before you watch these Christmas classics, make sure you’re equipped for the best streaming experience. Visit www.wcta.net to check out our ultra-fast internet speeds, and switch to our streaming service, West Central TV, to get a FREE Fire TV Stick.
Cornerstone Group © 2025 Gig Internet Greatly Enhances Online Activities Spread Joy This Season 2025 Holiday Coloring Contest Children 9 years old or younger are invited to enter. Pick up an entry form, then color or decorate it to your liking. Return your entry to thalenz@wcta.net or by mail to Coloring Contest, West Central Telephone, PO Box 304, Sebeka, MN 56477. Deadline for entries is November 28. Winners will be announced the following week. Family-Friendly Holiday Activity You don’t want to miss the Christmas in Wadena lights display at 414 3rd St. SW! It begins on Thanksgiving Day from 5:30-9:00pm. Help Spread Holiday Cheer! It’s the season of giving, and we’re collecting new toys, games, gifts, and cash donations to support local families through the Wadena County Empty Stocking Fund and Toys for Tots of Wadena County. Please bring donations for the Empty Stocking Fund to our Sebeka office and donations for Toys for Tots to our Menahga office by December 5. We’re also holding our annual Winter Coat Drive. Drop off new or clean, gently used coats at either location to help keep our neighbors warm this winter. Let’s make this holiday season a little brighter for everyone Gig internet is equivalent to about 1,000 Mbps, making it 10 times faster than the 100 Mbps internet found in many U.S. households. Why so fast? Because Gig internet runs on a fiber-optic line, making it capable of much higher bandwidth than the traditional copper lines of most DSL and cable connections. Lucky households with Gig internet experience dramatic benefits while enjoying online activities like these: • Streaming Video – All that bandwidth means lag-free streaming on Netflix (and other streaming services) even when family members are watching different shows on different devices simultaneously. But the real advantage with Gig internet is that 4K streaming, which uses four to five times as much data as a 1080p stream, will be free from the frustrating loading and buffer times often experienced with standard internet. • Online Gaming – Anybody who’s ever lost a match due to a laggy internet connection will love the upgrade to Gig speeds. Since Gig internet is symmetrical, meaning its upload and download speeds are the same, gamers don’t ever need to worry about slow ping rates and spotty connections. Faster upload speeds are also a boon for activities such as streaming gameplay with services like Twitch. • Immersive Media – The super-fast upload and download speeds of Gig internet make more immersive media, such as 360-degree video and virtual reality applications, more accessible. As higher data capacity goes mainstream in the years ahead, you can expect new media formats to take advantage of this opportunity, just as streaming video exploded when broadband became mainstream. Another major reason for busy households to choose Gig internet is to provide an excellent online experience for many users and devices. For example, a family of six can each be doing their own thing— from watching 4K movies to streaming music to attending virtual classes or meetings —without an internet hiccup. West Central offers a range of internet speeds including 1 Gig and 5 Gig plans. Call 218-837-5151 for help selecting the right speed for your household.
WELCOME NEW MEMBERS Shear Attractions....................................................................................... 218-445-5172 Clemens, Lori.............................................................................................. 218-564-0586 Fishel, Dawn................................................................................................ 218-564-1046 Brenda’s New Image. ................................................................................. 218-631-1623 Killian, Harley. ............................................................................................ 218-894-3415 When asked what she enjoys most about her work, Ravin immediately pointed to the people. “Everyone is so nice and welcoming! Since day one, I’ve felt supported, and the vibe is very positive,” she shared. Ravin’s journey began in Southwest Texas between San Antonio and Austin. Eleven years ago, she visited Perham, Minnesota, and quickly decided it would be the place she called home. Away from work, she loves reading in the quiet of her living room or the stillness of a deer stand. In the winter, she enjoys playing dominoes in the fish house with her husband while they wait for a bite. Many people may be surprised to learn that Ravin attended culinary school and is a certified pastry chef. Her favorite meal is steak pho, and her favorite book is The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. Plus, she never gets tired of laughing along with The Office. Looking ahead, she dreams of traveling to Australia to take a scuba diving tour of the Great Barrier Reef —a fitting adventure for someone who approaches both life and work with curiosity and enthusiasm. Please join us in giving Ravin a warm welcome to the West Central family! BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT: Customer Support Just Got Sweeter with Ravin When Ravin Saldana heard about an opportunity at West Central through a friend, she decided to take a chance. On August 18 she officially joined the team as a Customer Support Specialist, and she has already become a friendly and reliable resource for our customers. Each day she walks them through challenges, answers their questions and makes sure they have the updates and information they need. EDITOR Thalen Zimmerman BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESIDENT Bruce Kinnunen, Sebeka MANAGER/CEO Jon Loeffen, Sebeka VICE PRESIDENT Dave Pulju, Nimrod SECRETARY Robert Weaver, Menahga DIRECTOR Harvey Aho, Wolf Lake DIRECTOR Annette Adamietz, Verndale
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