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Reminiscing are, from left, Judy Lemmond Hamm, of North Carolina, Skip Martin, of Dallas, and Jerry Brown, of Towanda.

Spending time together at the Commonwealth Telephone Company Employees Reunion are, from left, Carlene McCaffrey, Harveys Lake; Joan Konnick, Kingston; Tanya Christ Factoryville; and Pat Giordano, Harveys Lake.

Charlotte Bartizek photos/ For The Dallas Post

“Do you remember me?”

“How could I forget?”

This was a common exchange between former employees of Commonwealth Telephone Enterprises (CTE) who gathered to reminisce and relax on Friday, Aug. 6 at Konefal’s Grove.

Tom Davis, past Vice President of Sales at CTE, and a few others organized the reunion of over 220 employees, but it wasn’t easy.

“We compiled a list by memory,” he said. There were no records of all of the company’s former Northeastern Pennsylvania employees, so Davis, with the help of fellow CTE alums Don Dolfi and John Stubeda, made many phone calls and kept a running tally themselves – for 21 years.

“We started planning in February 1989,” said Stubeda, a former engineer with the company.

The result of the trio’s labor was a day of fun, food and sharing memories under the pavilion at Konefal’s Grove. Employees who hadn’t seen each other in years hugged, kissed, laughed and cried as they reminisced with their past co-workers.

“I’m getting emotional right now,” said Margaret Baloga, a former inventory control director for Commonwealth Communications. “It was like a family.”

That “family” bonded over one thing – the constant changes in technology as the evolution of telecommunication changed the career paths of many of the company’s employees.

Stubeda, who now owns a telecommunications sales company, said the advancement of technology has the ability to reach more people without the heft of more positions.

“Companies are leaner now,” he said. “On a telephone circuit, you would have six parties on a line. With fiber optic cables, it’s millions of people. Now there are (fewer) jobs.”

Dolfi also reflected on the changes in technology since his tenure at CTE where he worked as a Director of Engineers for 30 years. He and his team planned and designed the voice and data components of telephone networks.

“When I started, circuits could hold 300 baud, or bits, per second,” he said. “Now, they can hold one gigabyte of information – millions of billions of bits.”

Dolfi, who at one time worked in the former Commonwealth Telephone Company building on Lake Street in Dallas, believes the expansion comes at a cost.

“Technology now is more complicated and less user-friendly,” he said.

Conversation didn’t linger on the subject of work for too long, though, as the group was served lunch and socialized throughout the afternoon.

“Some people will say a few words, but it’s mostly just a fun thing,” said Davis.