Schools, Groups Gather Old Phone Books

SEBRING - Some of you already found your new phone book lying on the driveway, so now what are you going to do with your old one?

If you're planning to throw it away, the schools and some homeowners associations around the county would rather you left it with one of them. And not with anyone else, either.

"We have the telephone book challenge with the homeowner associations as well as the schools," said Sherri Cooper, the coordinator of Keep Highlands Beautiful which also runs the county's recycling program.

Once again, the schools and the homeowners are competing to collect the most used phone books for a first-place prize, where the top school collects $300 and the homeowners association get $400.

To help out a school, most of them will take your old phone book at its front office.

And how would the homeowners associations do it?

Vaughan Whitesides of the Buttonwood Bay Homeowners Association, which won last year's competition by turning in 2,728 old books, said he and the 321 other association members of the mobile home and RV park get their books from doctors offices and friends as well as themselves. The snowbirds even bring their phone books from up north.

As of Wednesday, just as the new phone books were coming out, he had roughly 200 books inside the collection bin near the rec room. He expected it to double in size over the weekend, but he hoped other homeowner associations would join in the competition.

"Our 2,728 books was almost half the books recycled by the homeowners association members," he said.

Both the schools and the homeowners actually compete by going for the highest average contributions per member or per student. Last year, Buttonwood Bay averaged 17.16 books per member, while Lake Placid Middle School, who won last year's school competition, turned in 3,015 old phone books, or about 4.67 per student.

For those who don't want to go to a school or some homeowners association to recycle their old books, some of the recycling centers in Sebring, Lake Placid and Avon Park accept the books as well.