Obituary

Benjamin Stalker Read (M´23) president of the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, Atlanta, Ga., died July 23, 1935. He was born at Carthage, Tenn., January 21, 1876. In 1890, he entered the service of the Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph Company, at Carthage, Tenn., as messenger boy and local agent. In 1903, he became manager of this company at Owensboro, Ky., and in 1904, manager at Chattanooga, Tenn. In 1904, he became district manager for the company with headquarters at Louisville, Ky., and in this and all of the positions which he subsequently held, his responsibilities included the supervision not only of engineering, but of construction, maintenance, and operation of the telephone plant. From 1908 until 1912, he was district superintendent for the company for Louisiana and Mississippi, with headquarters at New Orleans. After a few months in 1912 as general manager of the Bell Telephone Company of Missouri, with headquarters at St. Louis, he became that year general manager of the Missouri and Kansas Telephone Company, with headquarters in Kansas City, Mo. From 1914 until 1919, he was vice president in charge of operation of the Southwestern Bell Telephone System (now the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company) operating in several western states with headquarters at St. Louis, Mo. During a portion of 1919, he also served as a member of the supervisory staff, Bell system, under United States Telephone and Telegraph Administration, with headquarters in New York City. From 1919 until 1924, he was president of The Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company, with headquarters at Denver, Colo., and from 1924 until his death he was president of the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company and the Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph Company with headquarters at Atlanta, Ga. Mr. Read was president of the Telephone Pioneers of America in 1925. During the World War he was a member of the War Camp Survey Committee. He was a director of the Fourth Nat- onal Bank of Atlanta, and a member of several clubs in that city.