When the site was designed, our goal was to have a web site that encouraged contact through online communications. The database for the search function was written from scratch and currently has over 2000 listings, Registry Search.Our initial focus was on students who graduated from the school in Ankara. But you convinced us to include any student that attended school in Ankara from 7th to 12th grade. (You can read more About Us - 2005 & 2013)

Your photographs, reunions and life events have made the site interesting to visitors, who find they have something of their own to add. Registrations have allowed us to keep you connected, keep you from joining the ranks of the Lost. Your visits to the site have given us a strong presence with search engines, enabling even more alumni to find us ... to make an Ankara Connection.

There are several alumni who have been instrumental in helping us become one of the most successful and diverse of alumni associations. These individuals spend hours of their personal time behind the scenes supporting and developing alumni projects. You may be familiar with some of these alumni, but it is time to feature the key people.

Shiela Weaver 67 is webmistress for e-Citadel. She started scanning and uploading Ankara yearbooks in February 2005. Her site has complete* yearbooks from 1953-2005 available to browse, plus an interesting section for "LORE - AHS Memorabilia." You can find information on the history of the school, maps, school newspapers and much more.

Wray Woolley 66 hosts e-Citadel on his server free of charge. This is a significant contribution since e-Citadel has over 5000 pages. He has also hosted several other alumni web sites, blogs and bulletin boards. His web site, AnkaraFamily.net, whose focus is the mid-sixties, was the first Ankara alumni web site, and AFamily, the first alumni listserv, is still going strong.

*Seniors are missing from the 1998 yearbook. Shiela needs pages 3-16. Do you have a 1998 yearbook you would be willing to loan to Shiela for scanning? Contact: Shiela.

The classes of the sixties were some of the largest to attend what was then George C. Marshall Regional High School/Ankara High School; the dorms were open and full. That fact, along with Wray's AnkaraFamily going live in 1996, is why you will see more contact information, reunions and photographs available from that era.

Susan Curran 72, in a very quiet and unassuming manner, has been the driving force behind organizing and reuniting students and faculty from her era of the early seventies, focusing on Miss Elmore’s Nights on Broadway students. For eight years, Susan has been publishing "Ne Var, Ne Yok" (What's Up), an electronic quarterly newsletter. It is a wonderful source of information and the inspiration behind Life Events on Connections.

Susan Curran 72

It wasn't until AnkaraReunion.com was published on the Internet in January 1999 that students from the eighties and nineties were included in alumni efforts online. The pied pipers in this group are:

• Kim McCurdy 87- Listserv, Ankara Turkey (80s and beyond)
• Jayme Crehan 87 - Facebook, GCMHS-Ankara Turkey
• Marc Vitorillo 92 - Social network, AnkaraHighSchoolConnections.COM

For the past year, we have been working closely with Lyn Viles 66 of the AnkaraAlumniNetwork. Lyn is relentless in her pursuit of missing alumni and faculty. Between her efforts, word of mouth and our high rankings in search engines we had 251 new registrations this year.

And last but not least, Bill Allen 65. He is responsible for transferring the Ankara Directory to a secure, web hosted database and updating it as people are located. This is the first time in 19 years that the Directory is not parked on an individual computer - and accessible to/by several alumni.....ensuring its safety/existence.

For a complete list of people who have helped us over the past ten years, see Trojans behind Connections. Who else would you like to see us recognize? Contact: Connections