Oregon on the Web
This is a brief history of how the Oregon website was created, who was involved and how it
evolved into its current form. The information is linked to the "History" section
of the website, and the URL is:
http://swimoregon.org/webhistory.htm
The Oregon LMSC website was first started by Pat Allender of Corvallis. When Pat moved to Oregon in 1995, he didn't know much about the internet. He had no access to it in rural Pennsylvania. He was interested in it, however, and arranged for internet access as soon as possible on moving to Corvallis.
Pat wanted to learn about the "World Wide Web", so he bought a "Dummies" book and decided to create a web page. He created the Corvallis Aquatic Team's web page and another page for Masters. It was probably the first swimming club web page in Oregon.
A fair number of people found Pat's site and commented that it would be nice to have an Oregon LMSC site. Pat agreed and started to work on it in 1997. His idea was to have a site similar to what we have now, with meet results, records, event calendars, possibly the Aquamaster, a discussion forum, and anything else that could be added later if it was felt to be worthwhile.
Unfortunately, Pat soon ran out of space on his server, and around the same time, he realized it was harder to maintain a site than to create one. About the same time, his pediatric practice workload picked up quite a bit, and he realized that he didn't have the time it would take to make a nice site.
In 1998, Monika Hunscher of Tualatin Hills was appointed Webmaster. She redesigned the website, establishing a new domain name ("swimoregon.org") and securing the hosting services. In 1999, when Monika ventured out on a year-long world bicycle tour, Mark Vininski of Tualatin Hills was appointed Webmaster. Before Mark had much opportunity to work on the project, he relocated to Phoenix, Arizona.
Shortly before moving, Mark assisted Bill Volckening in replacing the old website. Bill completely redesigned the website, establishing all new graphic new design and a new system of navigation. With the help of Suzanne Rague , who was LMSC Chair at the time, Bill developed the various sections of the website in March, 2000. During the following 14 months, Bill served as Webmaster and the website continued to develop into its current form.
Among Bill's contributions, he compiled the first Long Distance postal swim records for Oregon using information available from the few years he was involved with the Oregon LMSC. These records will hopefully be updated as more information becomes available.
In August, 2000, the Oregon LMSC website was recognized by the Masters Aquatic Coaches Association (MACA) as one of the Top Ten LMSC websites in the United States.The MACA News annually evaluates LMSC and Club websites for design, content, navigation, speed / load time, and technical correctness. "swimoregon" scored high in all categories.
Bill's final update was completed in May, 2001, when he updated the "Oregon" graphic and prepared the website for the next volunteer.
