BellSouth adds eyes and ears to AMBER Alert Program

By By Steve Gillespie / staff writer
March 20, 2003
BellSouth representatives are announcing an initiative today in a nine-state region to help find abducted children through the AMBER Alert Program.
AMBER stands for "America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response."
It is a voluntary partnership between law enforcement and broadcasters to send out urgent bulletins in child abduction cases and quickly enlist the community's help.
In Mississippi, Amber Alert is run by the Mississippi Highway Patrol and the Mississippi Association of Broadcasters. BellSouth's role will be to send the alerts to its 15,000 service technicians including more than 750 in Mississippi.
C.D. Smith of Meridian, BellSouth's regional manager, said today that the technicians who operate service vans in the field every day are trained in emergency preparedness.
BellSouth also will send the AMBER alerts to customers of BellSouth Internet Service, which has more than 1.5 million subscribers, and all other BellSouth employees. BellSouth's nine-state region covers Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
John McCullouch, BellSouth state president-Mississippi, said the initiative is a way for BellSouth to show community support.