Edward Kelley

I was a student of Patterson School from 1971 to 1976. My time there was the most enjoyable years of my life and I took away many, many fond memories of the people and the 1400 acre estate. I dropped by the school a number of times over the years when I was up that way on business or vacationing around Boone with friends. Other than aging a bit, the campus never changed very much and that only served to reignite those memories every time I visited.

I became seriously ill in 2004 and nearly died. I recovered somewhat during 2008 and although permanently disabled, I began looking around for something to do with the rest of my life. I had been in touch with Janet Spoon, a member of the school’s Board of Trustees, since around 2001 and received a disturbing email from her in January of 2009. In that email she related to me the serious financial crisis the school faced.

We exchanged numerous emails over the next few months and then in May she informed me that the Board of Trustees had been forced to layoff the school’s entire staff due to the financial crisis. The school was faced with closing forever. That was when I discovered, through what I can’t call anything else but divine revelation, what I should do with the rest of my life. I should dedicate the rest of my days to serving and preserving the Patterson School.

To do this, I needed to reach out and reengage the friends and alumni of the school. That sounds easier than it was though. The school’s mailing lists were sorely out of date, with more than half of them being no longer valid. Additionally, the alumni registry was lost during the layoffs and with it every alumni email address the school had.

I knew there were various communities of alumni scattered across the internet in places like Facebook, Classmates, MySpace, Yahoo groups, Google groups etc. How to pull those various communities together was the challenge. After some brainstorming, I decided to create a blog where friends and alumni could get news about the school, subscribe to a new registry, and find the various communities of other alumni. The blog would become the central hub for all friends and alumni of the school.

In order to accomplish this, I needed to work with the school’s Board and the Alumni Association’s officers. I quickly found myself deeply enmeshed with the Board’s activities, although I wasn’t a Board member. This actually had a great impact on my ability to build the blog into something extremely useful to not just the friends and alumni, but to the school’s Board as well. It provided the Board a means to reach those friends and alumni that the school never had before.

The blog is constantly changing, growing. As time goes on, more and more people are contributing to it. I continue to add features and functionality that not only engage the school’s friends and alumni but that also appeal to the Christian lifestyle.

The Editorials category of the blog contains articles that are of my own opinion and not necessarily those of the Board’s or the Alumni Association’s. I will often write very emotional, controversial or religious commentary. Not everyone likes what I have to say, but most do. You can post your own comments in reply to anything I do post in this category, but I do reserve the right to edit or remove any comments I consider inappropriate.

The Readers Write category contains stories and trips down memory lane from various alumni or faculty. I actively seek new articles and welcome both good, and not so good, memories (although I do reserve the right to edit or reject any submissions). This is an equal opportunity section.

The Alumni News category is where you will find the latest news about the school’s friends and alumni. Generally this will include weddings, birth announcements, obituaries and other announcements. Anyone may send me a request to post an article in this section. Just provide me a link to an official announcement or the details of what you want posted.

The From the Board category is where you will find official school communications from the Board of Trustees. These may be from Press Releases or letters from the Board to the friends and alumni of the school.

The Miscellaneous category is where you will find the latest information about new features and functionality of the blog itself. I will generally post an announcement in this section when I bring those new features or functionality online.

As the blog evolves I will add new categories as needed. I may not remember to update this page so be sure to check the blog’s home page for the current list of Categories. I like interactivity, and I think the users do too, so I will be taking advantage of several media functions, such as video and audio clips. I will also be adding pages specific to Christian life and development and I hope to partner with one or more Christian organizations or Churches for specific content.

Other areas being planned or in development include detailed information on how you can help the school, either by volunteering your time or making donations, a partner’s section where I will list ads for organizations or companies that have made donations to the school, as well as a section where alumni can look up another alumni’s registry entry and send them an email, without the recipient’s email address being revealed (this is to protect recipients from email address harvesting by spammers ).

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions for the blog, please don’t hesitate to email me. I would love to hear from you.

Edward Kelley ‘76
The Webmaster
webmaster@pattersonschool.net