In our effort to locate lost classmates we keep an eye on the numerous high school alumni, reunion and classmate web sites. This past week we noticed a new entry from Emmett M. Smith who claimed to have attended Cocoa High School in 1965. We checked the class list and he was not listed. We checked the senior pictures and he was not listed. Finally, we checked the senior directory which is at the back of the yearbook and sure enough there he was. So how could a classmate not be listed on the reunion committee's official list?
During our senior year many students transferred in or out of school so it is possible that we may have missed someone along the way. The number one classmate inquiry of this site remains a student that went to Cocoa High School during his sophomore and junior years but did not attend his senior year. During the previous five or six years of this web sites operation we have located approximately one classmate per year which was not listed on the reunion committee's official list. I am sure that we may continue to find unknown classmates well into the future.
Now to the
subject of "lost classmates". I personally know of three
four five (*) individuals who
have contacted this site but basically desire no contact with the class as a
whole. Their primary reason for contacting this site is to obtain
information about a particular friend they had during their high school
years. I have tried to get them interested in class functions like the
reunions, mosquito beaters and etc., but they simply are not interested. I
have heard many reasons for their disinterest and it would probably take
many pages to tell their stories so I will not go into it here. (Maybe at a
later date we can explore this subject in more detail.)
As part of the web site package that we have we can tell who visits this site in complete detail. We are provided with IP addresses, date and time of visit, duration of visit, which pages were viewed, which search words were used to find our site and etc. In some cases the IP address tells us exactly who was viewing our site. In other cases the best we can do is tell what city the viewer was from. We can even tell exactly how many viewers added us to their "favorites menu".
So we do know that lost classmates have visited this site. We have even tried to contact some of them via email (in those cases where we had enough information). But basically lost classmates want to remain silent, secretive, allusive, distant......use any word you want here. But for various reasons some classmates do not want to be discovered. However, we do know that their curiosity as to what is happening with some classmates is just too much for them to stay away entirely.
We are an intense internet world and sooner or later many of the classmates will stumble upon this site either through word of mouth, reunion committee notices or google searches. Sooner or later they will turn up on our door step!
I have tried to encourage all classmates to take a more active roll in this web site. There will always be those classmates who are not interested in actively participating but I do have firsthand knowledge that they are visiting this site on occasion. At least we can keep them informed of classmate news and events. Sooner or later some of them may venture out of their secure worlds and join us for one last get-together or at least send us a real email.
Privacy is maintained on this web site and your secrecy will be maintained. But rest assured, I do see you and in some cases I do know who you are.
(*) number updated