An alert reader of the Stark County News brought an issue to our attention.
The new 2009 - 2010 Verizon phone books for the Kewanee area, covering area codes 309 and 815, have a big mistake.
The whole village section of LaFayette - West Jersey is printed with a new area code, 618.
Since area codes are changed frequently several residents have received comments about their “wrong” numbers.
As a roving reporter I firstcalled  Idearc, the publishing company that prints the materials. 
No surprise when the person on the phone told me that the phone company has all that information and gives that to them directly and they don’t have anyone that coordinates the printing of that material with the phone company.
Incredulous towards her answer, (Thank you Dawn) I called the phone company Verizon with my story.
To be sure to get their attention, I may have exaggerated the issue by saying that a whole town, actually two whole town’s phone numbers were listed incorrectly and when were they going to print corrected materials.
My second phone call went as expected. “You must call the publishing company, we don’t have anything to do with that here.”
Hot under the collar, I re-called Idearc the publishing company again.
This time I got a very nice operator who listened to my story and then asked me for the number I wanted corrected.
I clarified that it was a WHOLE city’s numbers that were wrong.
She went and grabbed a copy of the phone book and we looked it over until she found the three pages with the incorrect listings.  (Ok, ok, I told you I may have exaggerated a bit, I don’t think they would have taken me very seriously otherwise).
She was unable to connect me with the publishing department, but made a note of my complaint and took my name and number. (Did I mention that I didn’t say I was from the newspaper either until she wanted my information.)
“Someone will call you back,” she said.  That was last Wednesday. I hadn’t received a call yet at press time.
Maybe they need more calls. 1-800-888-8448 is the number if you’d like to raise your blood pressure.