TCHS Alumni News
Temple City High School, California
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Alumni News Views
Housekeeping
Organize a Class Group with Us
We are working on creating sub-groups of the membership. The first will be to help any class that wishes to participate. Each group will have a photo album and a forum topic to foment a continuing conversation.

Subsequent groups under consideration could be music, sports, etc. Suggestions from prospective organizers are encourage.

If you would like to start a group and are willing to be its coordinator, please write to the editors.

—RC

PS: You can get started by helping Kathy Springer '60 and me ID the girl in the top row below. Our embarrassment is unbearable, HELP!

Alumni News Needs Your Help
We’ve had a complaint that the recent Class of ’77 reunion was not sufficiently reported on this site. We posted news of the reunion in our calendar in August. We’re sensitive to such comments, so we did a little homework.

We did a Google search for tchs high school reunion 1977 with time set to past year. Temple City ’77 appears second in the list of results (as of this morning 9/24/17). There are also numerous other mentions in search results. (Note that “TCHS” is not a unique acronym. E.g., Tates Creek HS, KY; Traverse City HS, MI; Trinity Catholic HS, CT; Todd County HS, KY; Tuba City HS, AZ; Tell City HS, IN; Tuscaloosa County HS, AL; Technical College HS, PA; and many more.)

The event is mentioned in at least two Facebook threads/pages.

We have no link to the school, nor do we have anyone on their staff sharing news. Reunions are independently organized, and if they don’t keep us apprised of plans we are unaware of events.

Finally, although we can send bulk mailings on behalf of event organizers, we do not publish our address lists in order to keep our promise of confidentiality to registrants. And unregistered users can see only the public sections of the site and do not receive group mailings.

We would be pleased to appoint class coordinators, as we have mentioned often in the past, but the silence of potential partners is deafening.

We can only do what we can do. Register, and we can do more together.
NEW! Become a Class Coordinator; Keep Classmates Informed
We've added a new "reporter" feature to the Member system. We are seeking a class coordinator for every class. The class coordinator can post articles directly into the Alumni Newsletter.

For example, see my profile and its My News Reports feature. Recent articles will be automatically linked in the same part of your profile once published.

Adding an article is really quite easy. Using a simple, self-instructional form you will type or paste a title and a body of text. You can also include a link to additional information elsewhere on the Web, plus a photo. Of course, you can simply use the basic tools, but with a little more training you can also embed videos, more photos and other information, and you can use most of the HTML/CSS tools of ordinary web page layout to have fun with the contents of your article if you like.

Interested? Contact me via the "Write to..." link on my profile for more information.
Changes made to Journaling and Home Page
We've been busy. We have tweaked the layout of the home page and made changes to personal journaling.

Our newly revised Journal feature now incorporates the former Updates; we are working on an expanded article creation form with image and miscellaneous uploads. You will be able to edit your updates and attach a news article complete with embedded graphics and hypertext links.

The home page reflects this increased emphasis on reporting by members. Additional links and home page content are in the planning and development process.

We welcome your comments and opinions (use To The Editor to send messages).
Messaging maintenance completed
We have modified the member messaging system to correct some issues that occurred when specific conditions applied to replies. It is believed that the system now correctly (a) accepts messages, (b) displays lists and individual messages and (c) manages replies. We appreciate notice of any issues encountered by users.
What's going on here? Site upgrade installed; testing continues
A new version of our Members system has been installed. There are many changes from the old roster. We hope that the new system will increase service to alumni and your enjoyment of the site. Suggestions and bug reports are welcome.
  • Login is now universal. If you sign in (from any page) you will have access to your personal profile and many other features. If you are an advertiser you will soon have fully integrated editing in the Sponsor Directory linked to your membership.
  • A Public Member List on the home page lets anyone list registered members but does not reveal any personal information or allow contact. Sign in to see comprehensive lists and additional information about members. (Thanks to Barbara S for this suggestion.)
  • The new Personal Profile, summarized with a general statement about yourself, has several extended features, with more coming soon:
    • Each member can submit Updates, brief statements of current activity. You can link your updates to any URL. Your updates may appear in the summary on the home page for members only, or elsewhere on the site. Your most recent update appears with your name in class and member lists.
    • Blog freely in your personal Journal. Use your journal as a biography, to tell us stories about your life in TC and elsewhere.
    • Use your Message Center to exchange messages with classmates and other friends without sharing your "real" contact data. The system will notify you whenever a new message is waiting.
    • You can embed links to display externally sourced Graphic Media (e.g., pictures from Flickr or movies from YouTube). Depending on the link you include, the external media may appear right in your profile. [Example (login required): Founder's Profile]
    • You can link your TCHS Alumni profile to other Social Media like Twitter, Facebook or instant messaging services.
    • Coming Soon: Friends, Favorites, Interest Groups (e.g., music, sports..., to complement your default class year group.
Why have we made this change? The old roster was developed on the foundation of a commercial directory and as such fell gradually out of phase with the needs of the association and with contemporary technology. We have retained the Directory for sponsors and local businesses as part of our fundraising effort in support of the site. UPDATE: 9/17/09 - Deceased members have not been fully integrated into class lists yet. This should happen shortly.

Spammer Hits TCHS Alumni
We have discovered that a spammer managed to send about 200 messages to members yesterday 9/3. Today 9/4 we are working actively to add to our security. Although we have deleted the spam content, we cannot recall the notifications, so if you sign in in response you may be confused, as the system will show you have no such message. We regret any inconvenience.

The offender actually created a membership and sent the messages individually, apparently in reverse order of registrations. Bulk mailing to the member list is not possible.

Members may rest assured that their actual emails are unknown to the sender (unless, of course, you respond to the spam). Note that we have addressed the problem within a few minutes of receiving notice.

RC
New Feature: Change Font Size
Readers may enjoy a new feature that lets them change the size of fonts on the pages of TCHS Alumni News. At the bottom of the main Table of Contents at left find the Aa links of varying sizes. Clicking each will adjust the size of the font on the current page in many browsers. Optional sizes range from 90 to 150 percent of the default type size.

We chose our font and its size based on contemporary design standards. This does not always meet the needs of older or partially sighted users. So we have made this available to all. Some browsers allow you to override our settings and set your own standard typeface and font size. Please feel free to make such changes. We have tried to make the site sufficiently robust that imposing your own style sheet should not be a problem; if it is, let us know and we'll look at the problem.

(As always, if you're clinging desperately to your good old Netscape Navigator 4.7 or an old version of Internet Explorer or some ISP's proprietary browser, you may not experience the benefit. We currently test against Firefox 3, Safari 4 and MSIE 8.)

Chat Room Update
Our Chat Room system has been somewhat revamped and made easier to access. You can access Chat from the home page or the Chat page (which doubles as the instructions).

The editors suggest that you invite a group of friends to join you at pre-arranged times, or just jump in when you see that other alumni are already chatting. Don't be bashful; find new friends.

For those of you in the alumni protection program, there's a way to create a private room. Read the instructions carefully.
New Navigation Links
In preparation for a general upgrade this summer we have modified the registration login procedures. The sign-in link has been moved below the main title and search box at the right of the page and integrated with a sign-out link.

One small step. The giant leap is still a-borning.
Contact Info Change for TCHS Alumni News
Due to increasing spam received in the editor's account, we have closed the mailbox we've been using for several years. To contact Alumni News, please use the contact form linked below. Thanks for understanding.

Here's a general tip for email users:

1. When sending email to multiple users, DO NOT put long lists of recipients into the TO: or CC: fields. This causes the entire list to be revealed to all the recipients, and if they forward the message to others, the chain of exposure of your friends' addresses is pyramided, which benefits only spammers.

2. Instead, send the message to yourself and put your other addresses into the BCC: field of the email header. (Some email programs require that you activate the BCC field.) That way, (a) you will automatically get confirmation that the message was sent, and (b) each recipient will see only his own address and think you sent the message individually.

By following these simple steps, you will be helping reduce the benefits of sending spam, and all those poor fools will starve. Do not, we emphasize, hunt them down and kill them. As Richard Nixon said, "that would be wrong."

To The Editor Form

Video Experiment
YouTube makes it easy to embed videos in other sites. We've found some examples featuring the TCHS marching band at a 2006 event on North Field and a teaser for Eric Bauer's 50 year retrospective from 2004. We'll add more over time, and we encourage you to send suggestions - family-friendly, please - to the editor.

See the video(s).

Pages Fly When You're Having Fun
Since our "bottom line" revolves around people and not numbers, we failed to note a milestone earlier this fall, when we transmitted our two-millionth page. The count since 2002 now stands at 2,300,885 pages, of which 10,953 were transmitted during the past seven days to 790 readers. An estimated 82,840 readers have visited the site.

Thanks for your interest and support to date. We invite you to consider subscribing at our low donation of $12 per year. Your 3.3 cents per day can allow us to build an infrastructure that will survive the founders, whose gray hair and eventual desire to sit and rock will someday be more truth than poetry. -RC
Updates, please!
Hi, all! I'd rather not spend the summer posting obituaries, so if you're getting married, having a baby, changing jobs or climbing a particularly interesting mountain, send along news of your exploits! -RC