South Mississippi Woman Helps Washington State Film Students Win 2nd Place In Cellular South Customer Contest Showcasing Its Nationwide Network
Lucedale Paralegal Shares $2,000 Prize For Video Showcasing Network Quality, Reliability and Coverage
Jessica Welford (center) is all smiles as she joins Washington State film students Zach Smith (left) and Nathan Coltrane (right) in displaying the $2,000 cash prize they received as the second place winner of Cellular South's "Your Network-Your Stories" customer video contest. Welford, a 26-year-old paralegal from Lucedale, Mississippi, collaborated with Smith and Coltrane on "Cellular South Hikers," a short video that portrayed two hikers lost on a mountain in a snowstorm near death who use their Cellular South phone for one last goodbye with their family and friends. The name on the check is Coltrane’s grandmother, Betty Pinegar of Memphis, Tennessee.
RIDGELAND, MS - (January 30, 2009) – Jessica Welford, a 26-year-old paralegal from Lucedale, Mississippi, helped two Washington state film students win second place and a $2,000 cash prize in Cellular South's recently-concluded "Your Network – Your Stories" contest, which featured customer-created video stories and testimonials about the reliability, quality and coverage of the Mississippi-based company's nationwide wireless communications network.
Welford, who lives in Lucedale, Mississippi, was honored along with Washington state film students Nathan Coltrane and Zach Smith at a special awards program in Memphis, Tennessee on Wednesday for their submission "Cellular South Hikers," a short video that portrayed two hikers lost on a mountain in a snowstorm near death who use their Cellular South phone for one last goodbye with their family and friends.
"We're really excited to receive this honor from Cellular South," said Welford, who helped with the filming and actually placed a call to the two film students during their shooting of the video in a remote mountain range in Washington state. "I know everybody involved worked very hard on this project and we're just happy that the judges rewarded us for the creativity and the concept."
Coltrane, who attended the awards program along with Smith and Welford, said he learned about the video contest from his grandmother, Betty Pinegar of Memphis, and decided to submit an entry after reviewing the theme. "Our nana knows we like to make videos and this contest sounded like a really cool way to showcase our film-making skills, so we decided to go for it," Coltrane said.
Smith, his partner in the video, said they decided early on that the theme would be the "unbeatable coverage" of Cellular South's nationwide network. "Our premise was that you get service with Cellular South where no other companies can provide it – so we went to the most extreme circumstances possible – the top of a mountain during a snowstorm – to prove our point that Cellular South beats out all of the competition," he said.
The "Your Network-Your Stories" customer video contest set participation records for a customer-generated video program with more than 65 entries. "We're very pleased with the response from our customers," said Jim Richmond, director of Corporate Communications for Cellular South. "We have one of the nation's best networks in terms of quality, reliability and coverage and it's obvious that our customers wholeheartedly agree."
The $10,000 grand prize winners in the contest were Kris Steward and Jesse Beake, employees of Honda Haven, a Memphis-based AAA emergency road service contractor, who used a true-life story of their search for a wireless communications provider with the best coverage and call quality as the basis for their "Helping Us Help You" video entry. Third place winner of a $1,000 cash prize was Joseph "JoJo" Dodd, a 16-year-old Picayune Memorial High School student, for his submission "Cellular South: There When It Counts," a short video that was actually a funny spoof on a famous urban legend about Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, an alleged ape-like creature that roams the forests in the Pacific Northwest.
As an added bonus from the contest, Cellular South received three, compelling true-life stories from the customer video contest submissions that have been developed into 30 second commercials that will air during the Super Bowl on Sunday.
In one segment, Ross Taylor, a 15-year-old high school student at Jackson Preparatory School in Jackson, Mississippi, loses his Cellular South mobile phone in the woods while deer hunting in remote Claiborne County. Taylor returns two days later and, using a friend's Cellular South mobile phone, tracks down and recovers the phone by calling the number and relying the company's strong network coverage and signal.
The other two segments focus on a Memphis businessman who moves from California and his spotty mobile phone service with another carrier to Memphis, switches to Cellular South and now has nationwide service with no dropped calls and a paramedic for a private ambulance firm in the Mississippi Delta and relies on the Cellular South network to call in critical patient reports to local doctors, hospitals and urgent care centers.
"These true stories reinforce the reality that our customers rely on our nationwide network in every way and proved once again that even the most advanced wireless device is only as good as the network it runs on," Richmond said.
About Cellular South
Cellular South is a privately-owned diversified mobile communications company passionately committed to helping customers get the most out of their wireless devices and services. The company accomplishes this goal by providing the most reliable and advanced 3G nationwide wireless voice and data network, offering industry-leading unlimited flat rate plans, and through its online and in-store Discover Centers, which give customers easy, simple and convenient tools, tips, advice and information to get the most out of their mobile phone. For more information, visit www.cellularsouth.com.
