LaVergne's
TeleMessaging Celebrates 50!
LaVergne Turpin opened LaVergne's Answering Service, now
LaVergne’s TeleMessaging, on October 1, 1960. It was the area’s first
“live” answering service, and it has grown exponentially under Mrs.
Turpin’s leadership. Now employing eleven agents and offering 24/7
coverage, it is the area’s only surviving “live” telephone answering
service. LaVergne’s uses Onvicall equipment, provided by Onvisource.
In 1963, LaVergne’s TeleMessaging became the area’s first
after-hours Western Union Agent. In 1966, LaVergne’s added the first
off-premise alarm-monitoring service and became the first Radio Common
Carrier (RCC), adding mobile telephones and a radio paging service.
LaVergne then built the area’s first communications tower, which stands
over 500 feet tall. To this chain of firsts, LaVergne’s also provided
Radiotelephone service to vessels on the Red River in 1988.
When voicemail and fax emerged as viable communication
tools, Lavergne’s innovatively applied these new technologies to operate
a “live” answering service statewide.
LaVergne graduated from high school third in a class of
forty-two, went on to Alexandria Business College, completed Real Estate
Law and Appraisals at Louisiana State University in 1956, and became the
first woman real estate broker in Alexandria. In the 1990s, LaVergne
served on the Federal Reserve Board’s Small Business Advisory Counsel,
and her company was awarded the local and state “Small Business of the
Year.” Her entrepreneurial spirit continues through her charter
membership in the Tioga Historic Society: She renovated The Community
Barber Shop and built a telecommunications museum.
LaVergne Turpin has been
a role model and mentor for twenty years with the Professional Women’s
Network and Better Business Bureau, and for fifty years with the Chamber
of Commerce and Board of Realtors, as well as a charter member of the
Louisiana Radio Common Carriers Association. She also funds two
scholarships at LSU-A and Louisiana College.
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