The Party Isn’t Over in This Tiny Town in Missouri

While people all over the country mull over which modem to buy, which fax to send, which Web site to visit, the folks in Wentworth just hope for a dial tone.

Since crank telephones were replaced with dial phones in 1966, nearly everyone in this rural community has been hooked to party lines, with four homes sharing one line. Pick up the phone to make a call and you might interrupt a neighbor’s conversation.

“We’re one step above two cans and a string,” said Councilwoman Nancy Stephens, who has led Wentworth’s fight for private lines.

The community is slated to be converted completely by 1997. After 30 years, the people of Wentworth can hardly wait until the party’s over. They’re tired of uncooperative neighbors or teenagers vying for phone time.

“Sometimes they just pick it up and start dialing,” said Postmaster Melvin Miller, who shares his line with John Sweeney’s general store. “You just have to yell if they don’t put the receiver to their ear first.”

Party lines go beyond stealing convenience and privacy, Wentworth residents say--the lines rob them of business and threaten their safety. Fewer than 5% of the homes in this community have private lines.

A 911 call from most anywhere in Wentworth brings a blank screen at the central dispatch center because there is more than one address for the line. If the caller cannot give the proper location, it can take up to 20 minutes to trace it--and even that is not always successful. That’s a concern when someone in distress or a child makes the call.

“If we can keep them on the phone, we can trace the line,” Newton County dispatcher Vickie Bayless said. “If we can’t keep them on the line, there’s not much we can do.”

Wentworth is not alone in the technology lag. About one-third of 1% of the 150 million phone lines in the United States--or about 500,000 lines--are shared, according to the U.S. Telephone Assn.

Most party lines are in rural areas, many of which could benefit from better communication because they are far from law enforcement, medical assistance and schools.

“There’s an assumption when you pick up the phone in America you should not have to wait to call your mom or your employer or the fire department,” said Larry Irving, assistant U.S. secretary of commerce. “That’s not an irrational expectation to have. In fact, it’s very rational.”

The problem is that phone companies find that it’s not cost-effective to convert to private lines in sparsely populated rural areas.

It costs GTE, which owns the lines in Wentworth, an average of $560 to install a line in the Midwest, more than twice the $248 national average, said Don Neely, a GTE spokesman in Columbia, Mo. And in rural areas, there are fewer customers to defray the costs of running the lines.

“You look at some of the costs associated with upgrading some of these communities, and it becomes quickly apparent that it’s a very expensive process,” Neely said.

As of May, there were 19,907 party lines remaining in Missouri. All should be eliminated by the turn of the century, said state Public Service Commission spokesman Kevin Kelly.

In the meantime, the people of Wentworth are sick of being a party to numbers-crunching.

Since Wentworth does not have a bank, Miller, the postmaster, files his financial report to the Postal Service computer through a touch-tone phone.

“Sometimes I’m right in the middle of the program--and somebody at the store will start putting their numbers in with mine,” forcing him to start all over again.