Webmaster Greetings
Happy Holidays Classmates,
As always, thanks for taking the time to read this latest, decidedly irregularly timed, issue of the East Forsyth Class of 1979 Newsletter. I've always intended for this newsletter to be issued on a definite schedule, but life tends to have other plans as we all know all too well. I can only promise that I'll issue it when I issue it, and I'll make an effort to be more timely and more frequent with it leading up to reunions.
Last week, I had one of my warped little dreams that I took as an indication that this newsletter was long overdue. We were having a reunion-type activity in what seemed to be Kernersville's Fourth of July Park which I haven't been in for over twenty years. As usual, I was hawking the class web site, but no one seemed the least bit interested. The response I got from the classmates I was approaching ranged from benign indifference to mild hostility; I take it as a good sign that none of these generic classmates were recognizable as anyone in particular.
Of course, dreams aren't really much more than a sleeping brain's attempt to make sense of random electrical impulses leaping across its synapses. A dream only takes on "meaning" once a conscious brain takes hold of it. My webmaster's anxiety notwithstanding, my dream ended with the image of a severed reptilian arm, and a left arm at that, like a human arm only somewhat elongated, with claws, and mostly dark green, scaly skin, which was dragging itself along a branch of a nearby tree. Hmm, I reckon I've watched too many sci-fi and horror movies and shows in my forty-plus years!
Finally, allow me to offer everyone a hearty "Season's Greetings!" for whatever turns your crank this time of year (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Solstice, Saturnalia, etc.) and "Best Wishes!" for the coming new year. Please stay safe in your holiday festivities whatever they may be.
As always, an HTML version of this newsletter will be posted in the archive after the text version has been e-mailed. The archived versions of the newsletter have hyperlinks to the most recently modified sections of the site. If you want to see a specific change, all you have to do is click on what you want without surfing through the site.
Matt Wallace, Class Webmaster
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Class Project: Operation Eagle Dog
Even if you're unable to assist with the formal reunion committee, you can still help out by participating in "Operation Eagle Dog." "Operation Eagle Dog" is the codename for my new effort to get the Class Directory up to 100 percent. Consider yourselves drafted. Yes, I spent entirely too much time in the military.
The success of "Operation Eagle Dog" depends on you making a point of locating your old high school friends and getting them reconnected with us here on our web site. If each of us can find two or three classmates and have them find others, we can get the Class Directory up to 100 percent in no time. Doing so will relieve the yet-to-be-formed 25-year reunion committee of the locator task, thus freeing them to focus their energies on preparations for our next reunion in 2004.
Why not do your part in making our silver reunion a soaring success? C'mon people, bird-dog for me! Get out there and flush out our lost fellow Fighting Eagles!
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Class Contacts
As always, the online class directory continues to plod along towards the ultimate goal of accounting for 100% of the class. Currently we have some sort of info for about 29% of the class and e-mail addresses for about 14% assuming they haven't gone bad in the past seven months thus causing a further decline. Using both our senior yearbook and our graduation program, my best listing of the "entire" senior class of 1978-79 consists of 753 individuals. We have much work ahead of us, and there are several ways you can help build our alumni directory.
First, make sure your info is as complete as you care to make it and keep it current. I heartily thank those of you who are doing this; the directory is only as good as the quality of the info it contains.
Second, if you are currently in contact with any classmates for whom we have no or only partial info, please inform them of our web site. If they're online, have them submit their contact info using the registration form. For our non-online classmates, print out the form and have them complete and mail it to my home address as indicated or you could submit their info for them, preferably with their permission.
Third, make a point of tracking down your old friends who are among our missing classmates. This could be as easy as opening the phone book. If possible, contact them directly or contact their parents or other family members to find out how you can reach them. When you locate them, have them register as above.
Again, I thank those of you who are spreading the word about our class web site; your efforts are helping.
Additions and updates in Alumni Contacts since last newsletter:
Sanders Wyatt (Junior) Abbott, Jr.
Rita Denise (Denise) Benfield Yost
Michael Howard (Mike) Beshears
Belinda Carol Bohannon House
Deborah Gail Chandler Cigich
Joni Elise (Elise) Davis
Douglas Russell (Doug) Frank
Brian Theodore Husak
Lisa Diane Johnson Mason
Ricky Dwayne (Rick) Kiger
Clarence Ray Lambe, Jr.
Mark Douglas McCall
Phillip Gray (Phil) Money
Martin Andrew (Marty) Pahl
Grady Ray Price
Terry Ann Putnam
Stephen Douglas Kirkman (was Shore)
Keeping In Touch
One of the most important purposes of our class web site is the fostering of communication amongst class members. There are several methods for getting in touch with classmates, both on-site and off-site.
Don't forget that we have a message board for disseminating news about and for class members. If you get a promotion, complete a degree, add a new family member, move to a new city, take a new job, suffer an unspeakable tragedy requiring your classmates' moral support, simply want to toot your own horn, etc., then by all means let us all know about it! If you have similar news about a classmate or our teachers and other East Forsyth staff members, please submit that as well. The posts since the last newsletter are:
"Marvin Eaton is operating a strawberry patch" (15May02)
"20 Year Reunion Chairman calls for 2004 reunion volunteers" (16May02)
"East Forsyth Class of 1979 gets its own domain" (5Jun02)
"Graduation anniversary greetings from the Class Webmaster" (6Jun02)
"Donna Wangler and husband celebrate 20th anniversary" (6Jun02)
"Mark McCall provides a personal update" (6Jun02)
"Lisa Johnson reports on her cancer treatment" (23Jun02)
"Jim Wilhelm leaves East Forsyth principalship... for the second time!" (3Jul02)
"Brother-in-law of Mike Beshears dies in auto accident on 24 July 2002" (7Aug02)
"Billy Aughtry releases first recording" (13Aug02)
"Ed Jarrell's father dies on 5 November 2002" (21Dec02)
"Doug Wolford leaves VeriSign" (23Dec02)
I was rather pleased with the activity on the Message Board after the last newsletter; unfortunately it didn't last. At least I haven't had to post a classmate obituary, though the nature of life hasn't allowed me the luxury of avoiding obituaries altogether. Surely, plenty of you have some news to share. C'mon, how about a notice of a child's marriage, or, horror of horrors, the birth of a grandchild!?
As always, the guestbook is available for brief comments. You can simply offer your greetings to the class just to let everyone know you visited the site, you could throw out a query about classmate, etc. Of course, it never hurts to tell the webmaster what you think of the site, and the guestbook is an appropriate forum. You can use the Guestbook Form, send an e-mail with subject line "Guestbook Entry", or simply mention that your message may be posted in the Guestbook.
I encourage everyone to start a web page or web site; to help you get started, check out "Internet Resources" on the Links main page. A page or site will enable you to share more detailed info with your classmates. You can tell us about your family, your career, your hobbies, or whatever else you would like to tell us and the world. If we all had web sites, we could have an ongoing virtual reunion. Just send me your URL, and I'll add it to Classmate Web Sites and Web Pages in our Links section and your class directory entry as well.
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Absent Friends
As I mentioned earlier, I haven't had to post a classmate obituary since the last newsletter. I've tried to scan the Obituaries section of the Winston-Salem Journal's online version on a regular basis, so I'm fairly confident that I haven't missed any. From what I've observed, other Forsyth County Classes of 1979 weren't as fortunate. Also, I've detected a somewhat disturbing trend: the death of parents of members of our and nearby classes. In addition to the Ed Jarrell's father in November (please see Message Board, "Ed Jarrell's father dies on 5 November 2002," 21Dec02), the father of Camille Utley Rothrock (Class of 1980) died last Thursday, and the mother of Lori Lewis Anderson (Class of 1980) and Stan Lewis (Class of 1977) died in October. Hmm, I reckon we're at that age.
If you have more details on the members of this unfortunate list, I would greatly appreciate you forwarding that info to me. If you have more info about our deceased classmates or need to notify us of the death of a classmate or teacher, please submit it using the Absent Friends Form.
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Help Support Our Class Web Site
In addition to webmastering our class web site, I'm also paying for the webhosting. I'm not expecting y'all to start sending me checks, but I'd certainly cash any sent to me! I would appreciate it if you would help out by participating in an affiliate program with which I'm signed.
For those of you who aren't signed onto Alumni.Net yet, I hope you'll do so now. For those of you who are signed up under East Forsyth, try signing up under your college or even your high school (Carver, Atkins, etc.). Also, try to get your friends and family to sign up as well using the special link. I'll get 50 (or is it 25?) cents per sign-up, plus I could win a monthly prize for the most sign-ups. I won't receive a check until I accumulate a credit balance of $25 or more, and I'm nowhere close; please help. You can connect to Alumni.Net using the text or banner link at the bottom of each page in the class site or you can load the following special address directly into your browser:
http://www.alumni.net/cgi-bin/affiliate.pl?email=efshs1979%40yahoo.com
Thanks to all who have participated already.
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Finally, an "Administrative Note": If you receive an e-mail from me on any of the addresses I use for my various sites, please avoid the pro forma inclusion of my original message in your reply. I save both outgoing and incoming e-mail, so including my message in the reply is both redundant and unnecessary. This is one of my greatest Internet pet peeves. Aside from the acceptable use of brief snips for clarity, please, don't do it ... ever. This especially applies to this newsletter!
Until next issue, take care!
Contact the class webmaster, Matt Wallace, at efshs1979@yahoo.com.
