When the World Wide Web “wave” first broke, way back in the early ‘90s, Radford University was in the forefront among colleges and universities in developing a significant presence online. I emphasize the word significant because the university did more than just throw a home page out there. The goal from the start was to build a Web site with both style and substance, one that was both easy to use and rich in content. I believe we have lived up to that ideal, and I’m very proud to have been a part of it.

Our first Web site was developed by David Poteet, who was a member of our creative services staff from 1993 to 1995. I was the RU Sports Information Director at the time (and had been since 1978) and saw the Internet as a great way to reach our various constituents with news about the Highlanders. As I worked with David on the athletic department’s Web site, I became enamored with the new medium and its possibilities as a news and information portal for the entire university. So, in 1995, I stepped down as SID and stepped up to the newly created position of Director of Electronic Communications for the University Relations Office. I’ve been working ever since to try to give RU a viable presence on the Web.

I don’t really consider myself a “Webmaster” in the ultimate sense of the word because I don’t really have a background in the technology end of the Internet. I was a journalism (and geology) major at Washington and Lee University (1975 grad) and worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for the Page Newspaper Corp. in Luray, Virginia, before coming to Radford. My plan was to stay here for three years or so before moving on and trying my hand at something else. It didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, like so many others who come here to work and live, I decided there wasn’t a better place to call “home” than the New River Valley, or a better place to work than here at RU.