Overland Park ? Sprint Corp. on Tuesday reported its consolidated earnings fell 87 percent in the first quarter from a year ago when the telecommunications firm had a big gain on the sale of its directory-publishing business.

Profit in its traditional phone business fell while its wireless business reported a narrower loss for the latest quarter.

Overland Park-based Sprint earned $222 million for the January-March period versus $1.67 billion last year when it collected $2.2 billion from the sale of its directory-publishing business. Excluding that and other one-time items, Sprint earned $97 million during the first quarter of 2003.

At the company’s annual shareholders meeting, which also was Tuesday, Gary Forsee, the chairman and chief executive officer, praised Sprint’s performance during the last year, pointing to revenue growth, cost reductions and changes in corporate governance.

Stockholders, meanwhile, sided with management and rejected all four shareholder proposals, including a measure requiring stock options granted to senior executives be performance-based and a second that called for the board chairman to be an independent director, meaning someone not employed by the company.

Those proposals, which were backed by Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy voting firm which advises major investors, received the support of 33 and 36 percent, respectively, of shareholders casting ballots. The two other proposals received only 10 percent.

ISS had also urged shareholders to withhold their votes from Linda Koch Lorimer, the only board member seeking re-election to another term this year. But Lorimer, vice president and secretary of Yale University, was re-elected with 77 percent of ballots cast.