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BellSouth Named Georgia Women's Business Council's (GWBC) Corporation of the Year Chief Procurement Executive Tim Houghton wins Voice Award; Supplier Diversity Manager Beverly Wesley named Advocate of the Year ATLANTA, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- BellSouth Corporation (NYSE:BLS) is honored to be selected as Corporation of the Year by the Georgia Women's Business Council. The presentation, made during the GWBC's annual awards luncheon, cited BellSouth for its leadership in providing business and developmental opportunities for woman-owned firms in Georgia. Also at the event, BellSouth Chief Procurement Executive Tim Houghton was given the GWBC Voice Award and BellSouth Supplier Diversity Manager Beverly Wesley was named the GWBC's Advocate of the Year for their work in fostering and promoting relationships with woman-owned companies. BellSouth believes that by fostering entrepreneurship in woman-and minority-owned firms, it helps build prosperous communities, which in turn, help build a stronger BellSouth. "Everyone involved benefits when we expand our business with woman-and minority-owned firms," explained Phil Jacobs, president of BellSouth's Georgia operations. "Promoting entrepreneurship is a key avenue to greater prosperity for communities and businesses, through job creation, training and investment." And BellSouth is consistently recognized in its region as a champion of supplier diversity. In 2004 alone, affiliate councils of the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) honored BellSouth and its employees with: Corporation of the Year in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi; Executive of the Year in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi; and the prestigious Crystal Award in Georgia. Nationally, BellSouth has been named for the past two years to DiversityBusiness.com's Div 50 listing of top corporations for promoting business opportunities for woman-and minority-owned firms. BellSouth also surpassed a five year milestone goal from the 1999 SUPERCOMM Supplier Diversity Challenge to place 10% of its total procurement spending with diversity suppliers. For more information on supplier diversity at BellSouth, visit http://www.bellsouth.com/suppliers . GWBC is the official certification partner of the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) in the state of Georgia. Their mission is to enhance the competitive value of women-owned business enterprises (WBEs) through certification, education and corporate partnership opportunities. For more information on the GWBC, visit http://www.gwbc.biz/ . About BellSouth Corporation BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and a parent company of Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless voice and data provider. Backed by award winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the market. Through BellSouth Answers(R), residential and small business customers can bundle their local and long distance service with dial up and high speed DSL Internet access, satellite television and Cingular(R) Wireless service. For businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers online and directory advertising through BellSouth(R) RealPages.com(R) and The Real Yellow Pages(R). More information about BellSouth can be found at http://www.bellsouth.com/ . DATASOURCE: BellSouth Corporation CONTACT: LeAnn Boucher of BellSouth, +1-404-249-2839, or Web site: http://www.bellsouth.com/ http://www.bellsouth.com/suppliers http://www.gwbc.biz/ Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/095650.html

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