History

C r a f t o n R e u n i o n

History

A Brief History of Crafton Reunion

(With apologies to Steven W. Hawking)

It began simply enough, sort of by accident.....

It was the Summer of 1999, that warm Prelude to the Millennium, and people were going home for the Fourth of July. Y2K was just a few months away and making everyone more conscious of the inevitable passage of time. It became natural to think of events past, and those yet to come. 1999 / 2000 was a pivotal point in time.

     Barbara Cain (Deaver), '69, had seen her 30th Class Reunion "not happen" in 1999. She decided that "late" was better than "never." 2000 would make a splendid 31st Reunion.

     She began locating her Classmates.

     Bill Cain, '65, remembered his 20th Class Reunion, held in 1985. He had attended and enjoyed it, but nobody was yet organizing a 35th Reunion, for 2000.

     He decided to start the ball rolling.

     In late August, Brother and Sister discovered what each was doing. They quickly decided that a Multi-Year Reunion was a good way for them to facilitate their individual Reunions. (Perhaps spanning the last 6 years of Crafton High School; 1965 through 1970.) The concept soon took on a life of its own.

Within a week, that Multi-Year idea mushroomed and morphed into the Annual All-Years Reunion.

On 9/9/99, the first Crafton Reunion website was created, on AOL. It wasn't much to look at, and had little interactive capability. But, it was up and running and it was cheap. As in Free.

At that time our most effective communication medium was still, plain, and simple, email. It was a one-way medium that allowed us to tell all what we were planning for the Fourth of July weekend, 2000. Yes, it was kind of crude, but it worked.

In March, 2000, from her (then) Island Home in Guam, Loring Jahnke, '69, dropped a beautiful concept into our mix. It was called an eGroup. We now had a convenient, cost-effective, two-way communication vehicle.

     Anyone could now share their thoughts, memories, and even pictures, with everyone else who was subscribed. You could even share that most elusive art form, the "Pittsburgh Oldie." Even Porky would have approved.

     With only 125 email addresses (of then known Faculty and Alumni) our eGroup had a most humble beginning. We had no clue as to the future, or the effectiveness, of this form of cyber "Party Line." Since then, an astounding 95% of potential Subscribers have opted to participate in our eGroup.

     Since March 29, 2000, our eGroup has now grown to over 1200 Subscribers and helped us plan and promote our first Six All-years Reunions (in Pittsburgh) and all the bi-annual Mini-Reunions (in Florida).

We can proudly claim that we're the largest Single Community / High School Reunion eGroup on Yahoo! Not too shabby!

We now welcome you to our Website and hope you take advantage of its growing list of features. You'll never know what you might find, because we update this site on an almost daily basis. We even have a page of Hometown Links so that you can keep in touch.

But realize we don't limit our activities to the Internet. We are involved in ongoing Community Activities, such as Crafton Celebrates and the Crafton Volunteer Fire Department,

Yet another (!!!) successful Florida Mini-Reunion was held on October 17th, 2004, thanks to the efforts of Adele Johler, '66, and John (Lanny) Hill, '65. As usual, our Dynamic Duo outdid themselves. Cougars from the area enjoyed the Steelers victory over the Dallas Cowgurls, 24-20, Isaly's chipped-chopped ham and a litlle Iron City. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

We recently became aware of the "Ingram Reunion" folks, who held a get-together at the Fireside and an Oldies Dance at the Ingram Fire Hall, in 2001. We hope to work with them to make their future efforts even MORE successful.

Who knows, there may even be a "Carnegie Reunion" effort, lurking somewhere in cyberspace. If there is, we will find it... and try to help out.

Please, take a look around and see why we are growing, and why....

We have 5399 Alumni & Faculty on our Rosters!

If you want to learn more about your Fellow Cougars, you can:

Visit the rosters page to see who we've found.

Visit the m.i.a. page to see those we're looking for.

We both hope you'll enjoy your visit,

and contribute to our growth,

by connecting with other Cougars,

via our Yahoo! eGroup.

No Login needed!!!

One Click and you're in!

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