Many people ask how this web site came about, who manages it and pays for it.  

Short answer.... 
It was born summer of '98 during the Class of '73 25th Reunion.  The site is managed purely by volunteers and paid for by donations.  Each class year is encouraged to locate a volunteer for that class that has some inclination toward web page editing, has an interest in alumni activities (primarily reunions) and is willing to take the time necessary to keep their pages up to date. There is NO COST to the class for the service this site gives and the site is 100% non-commercial.

Long answer.... 
In July of '98 during the Sunday picnic event of the Class of '73 25th reunion, Mark Goldsmith and Dale Rylander ("Carole Johnson" Rylander's hubby) got to discussing how the web could be used to help facilitate reunion events and find more "Lost Wildcats". Dale, although not an LHHS grad,  is a computer and internet professional and encouraged Goldsmith that he could learn how to build a web page for the Class of '73 that could be a "Grand Central Station" for grads to find year after year.

Goldsmith built a page for '73 and hosted it on a rental site called LHHS.Wildcats.org at a very nominal cost.  A guestbook was also made so that visitors could leave an email or some record that they found the site and had been there. Within a year, Goldsmith decided to duplicate the pages for all the years at LHHS, and make temporary pages until someone emerged from that class to supply meaningful information there. Some classes are still waiting to this day simply because they have not had reunions come about to generate the need and interest for their own web page.

The site really started catching on about year 2000 as most people began using email and surfing regularly. They also realized the benefit to reunion committees of a place to post reunion info and gather email addresses. Some classes still don't take full advantage of the site, but it seems that is primarily due to the approach of the class reunion committee, i.e., some prefer to let a professional company (usually The Party People) do everything for them. I think professional planners see this site as competition because a reunion can be planned and executed at a much lower cost (about half) using the site. Those classes that have used the site have had great reunions at a low cost, which means more classmates can afford to come, and the party is bigger and better, and thus cheaper because of the larger numbers.

In June of 2000, the website outgrew the 5MB rental space available on Wildcats.org, and Goldsmith purchased several domain names to secure a more permanent address for the site that was owned instead of rented. Lakehighlands.net was purchased and has become the primary web address for the site. LHHS.Wildcats.org is still active because of its heavy search engine presence, so it has been kept active so as to funnel search engine traffic into the main site. One can go to any major search engine and type in about any combination of words or phrases that describe Lake Highlands High School and they are very likely to find our site in the first few results. Other domain names have been secured for future use, such as  LHHSWildcats.org and LHHS.info.

Since about 2001, many volunteers have emerged to help with the site as a whole. Goldsmith's wife, Leslie, was elated to see some help emerge because the site had become a time-eating monster, almost like a part-time job.  Mark Jeffers, who manages the Class of '74 has been a great help in advising and trouble shooting database and perl script areas and has shown a dedication to the site overall and has done a great job with his class pages as well.  Steve Spoonts has taken over the class of '73 site for Goldsmith as well as several other specialty areas, like the new Sports section with new info in the Football, and Drill Team areas. Steve also edits the "Might Be Famous" area. Mark Goldsmith edits the site overall, edits pages of classes that don't have their own volunteer, recruits volunteer web coordinators from each class, manages the password and FTP systems for each class, polices & edits the guestbook for inappropriate entries, and donates the funds for domain name renewals and server space rentals and manages that area. There are many other volunteers now for the individual classes that manage and edit their class site independently. 

Future plans: We have big plans for the site to improve its functionality, but it requires money and time and talent. We also need volunteers to edit specialty areas of the site, such as Band.

Comments or Suggestions about this website: E-mail Here