Special Anniversary Celebration in Medford, Oregon and Alba, Italy

Fifty years ago, when my father was mayor of Medford, Oregon, our city was selected to be one of the first users of the Telstar communications satellite. The mayor of Medford spoke with the mayor of our sister city, Alba, Italy. The audio quality was not great and the time window for the call was limited by the fact that the low orbiting satellite was not in a geo-synchronous orbit. Medford was the only northwest city to participate in the historic event and the only other Italian city invited to use the new technology was Rome. This event put our relationship with Alba on the world stage and helped to cement what has become one of the longest lasting and most successful sister city programs ever. On July 26, 2012 the mayors of our two cities celebrated the anniversary with a Skype call between the council chambers of Medford and Alba. Here’s a link to the story: http://www.medford-alba.org/telstar-anniversary