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Why? The Classes of 1965's last reunion was in October of 2005. In the planning year prior to the reunion, we like all classes do, had to come up with a communications plan. If you can not communicate with fellow classmates about your reunion - it is a guaranteed failure. Our past communication strategy was to have our Chrisman and Truman Reunion Coordinators spend countless hours calling every classmate they could locate. Ask each classmate for current contact information for the Memory Book and then write that information down on 5X7 cards. Early on, before free weekends of cell phone calling, long distance calls had to be minimized to avoid breaking personal budgets. So, in 2005 we bought our way onto the Classmates.com site and hoped to use the Internet to contact classmates that way. That worked splendidly for us trying to talk with classmates who had also paid Classmates.com. It was pathetic for non-paying classmates. And, we looked at other sites.
The basic motivation for setting up our own free website was Pinky Stinky Red Hot Mike Baird. Pinky was a class special, always the friendly guy living up to Milgram's slogan, "Hi, Neighbor." Pinky's passing was justification enough because he deserved some special recognition and we had tons of pictures from our Pinky parties.
We also had a budget crunch and 37 cent stamps to mail a letter were not going to improve our financial plight. We quickly discovered that e-mails are basically free and certainly easy to use. Unfortunately, the Class of 65 was born about forty years too soon for everyone to be computer literate. So, of our original 900 classmates about 200 actually have active e-mail accounts and use their computers to talk to each other. That still leaves a lot of classmates that have to be called and the website does not really help them much. But, if you remember your statistic classes on Alfredo Pareto, 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. So, numbers here can and most probably are quite misleading.
What? It is our sincere hope that this free site helps other classes in their working to pull off wonderful, memorable, and enjoyable Class Reunions. The first and main way we do this is by setting up a directory of the Classes we know about and provide a link from this free website to that Class's website. This helps guide their classmates from our site to theirs and now that we have been around for awhile - frankly, this site is becoming findable on the search engines. That is very difficult for the normal single class reunion website that is up for the reunion and then disappears until next reunion.
The second thing we do for other class reunions is to list contact information for their Class Reunion Coordinator. If we are given permission, we will include an active e-mail link that classmates can click on and then send their own Class Reunion Coordinator an e-mail. This e-mail can be to inform the Reunion Coordinator of intent to attend or ask questions that can only be answered by someone who knows about the reunion.
For the current calendar year, we try to highlight currently known reunions and class birthdays. Yeah! Already I can hear the youngsters giving that a good laugh. But, for those classes turning 40, 50, 60, 70 or 80 or more -- there is something quite nice about as many of the class as possible getting together and embellishing the new age together. Much less painful and one of those times when you do not have to be the oldest person at the birthday party. Families take care of that for you. For this information, please go to the "News Area" of our site.
For some classes, we post pictures. This takes up storage space and time - so our first preference is for you to do this on your own Class website to which we will gladly give you a link. If your class has an all time favorite picture or even up to ten pictures that you have in digital format and can e-mail them - then we will try to get them properly sized and then posted in or on your Class' page.
When? We are live now. If you want us to do something for you, the Independence, Missouri School District Official Alumni Coordinator for William Chrisman High School is Robie Mathews.
How To Get Started? Contact Robie Mathews at work and she will get you started and even help you with your reunion. She is especially well qualified to coordinate your Friday night event if you are planning a tour of the current high school or maybe a bit more. Talk to Robie for more information on that. We honor all Robie requests to get your Class on the website.
Where? The URL for this free website is: http://www.WilliamChrismanHighSchool.com. Simply copy and paste that URL into your web browser's address box and then come visit us.
Constructive criticism and positive suggestions are always welcome. For the other stuff, we prefer your silence. Have a great Reunion or Birthday Party!
Robie Mathew's Contact Information: Call Chrisman, Central Office 816-521-2700 (They will give out my home number.), or my cell 816-863-4668. I’ll find information out for Truman Grads too.
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This Page Last Updated: Thursday, 03-Jan-2008 10:05:43 PST