With more than 50 years in customer service, Barbara Burge has no doubt seen and heard it all in the cable industry, but she recently announced her retirement as Cable One’s general manager in Altus, Okla.

Burge became the Altus general manager three years ago. Her career started out in 1962 at Southwestern Bell Telephone Company where she worked as a service representative. She was promoted to business office supervisor in Lawton, Okla., in 1967, then returned to Altus in 1972 to become the business office supervisor. 

In 1978, Burge became the residence service center manager after divestiture of the local phone companies by AT&T. In 1984 she traveled much of southwest Oklahoma as the community relations manager.  In 1992 Burge moved to Post Newsweek Cable, which was Cable One’s predecessor, to become the office manager for Altus. At the time, Altus included the Oklahoma systems of Altus, Frederick, Hobart, and Mangum, as well as the Texas systems of Childress, Memphis, and Wellington, which were later sold. In 2012, Altus gained the Blair and Tipton, Okla. systems.

“Barbara was a tremendous asset when we acquired the nearby Marcus and TCI systems in Duncan, Elk City, Sayre, Clinton, Cordell, Pampa, Borger, and Dumas,” said Mitch Bland, Cable One Vice President.  “She was key in enrolling the associates from those systems in our benefits package, and she worked diligently with Duncan and Cordell in changing their billing system from Cable Max to Cable Data.  Barbara has continued to be an asset to Cable Ne over the years.  We will miss her, but we wish her well in her retirement.”

Burge, who was active in local organizations in Altus, will retire next Friday.