telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (11/16/89)
Richard Adamson Lumpkin, 92, of Mattoon, IL presided over the growth of two rural telephone companies begun by his father and grandfather until they became the 24th largest telephone company in the United States. Mr. Lumpkin, chairman and chief executive officer of Consolidated Communications, Inc. died last week at his home in Mattoon. Born in Mattoon in 1897, Mr. Lumpkin served in the Navy Reserve Flying Corps in World War I, and graduated from Yale University in 1921. His grandfather, Dr. Iverson A. Lumpkin, founded the Mattoon Telephone Company in 1894. His father, William Cutler Lumpkin, founded the Coles County Telephone and Telegraph Service to provide long distance phone service for customers of the Mattoon Telephone Company. When his father William died in an accident in 1924, Richard became general manager of the two companies, which had merged a few years earlier. He began purchasing other small rural telephone companies in Illinois, and founded Illinois Consolidated Telephone Company in 1935. He was president of Illinois Consolidated for 34 years, and became chairman of the board in 1970. During World War II, Mr. Lumpkin was a communications consultant to the War Production Board in Washington, DC. He was a past president of the United States Independent Telephone Association (USITA) -- a group founded many years ago to protect small independent telcos from being absorbed into the (then) rapidly expanding 'Bell System'. He was also president of the Illinois Telephone Association; vice-president of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce; and president of Mattoon United Way, among other positions. Eastern Illinois University named its College of Business in his honor. In 1984, Consolidated Communications, Inc. was formed as the parent company of Illinois Consolidated Telephone and several other subsidiaries. With his passing last week, his son Richard Anthony Lumpkin has taken the reigns as chairman of Consolidated Communications and Illinois Consolidated Telephone Company. Richard Lumpkin was truly a telephone pioneer. In his home town of Mattoon, he was known as 'the telephone company' for several decades. Illinois Consolidated still serves the town of Mattoon, and other nearby small communities, as well as other parts of the state and elsewhere. Patrick Townson