About SJHS |
Web Site History
In the month of December of 1994, the Saint John High School Web Page was born. This was a time when Windows 95 was still in development, no one knew what Internet Explorer was, and Netscape was the internet browser god. John Gahagan, who was the school Department Head of Technology before his retirement in 2002, maintained the page entirely himself. In fact, the window title bar for the original web page was labelled John Gahagan's Home Page. It was a simple design by today's standards. The page had clickable links, however, they only led to other sections on the same page (the browser would just scroll down!). There was, however, two external links to weather and news. The only picture was the original SJHS crest. The web hosting for the original web page was provided by Maritime Internet, which is now long gone. 
One year later, in the December of 1995, Thomas Wetmore, a student at the time, took over maintenance of the web page. He transformed it into a web site containing a wide array of pages of information about the school, and more images. Before too long, Maritime Internet was purchased by NBNet, and the entire site moved there. Thomas Wetmore introduced the On-Line Alumni alumni listings in the December of 1996, and he continues to maintain the presence of the Online Alumni today. Thomas Wetmore introduced many new ideas onto the web site. For the first time ever, photos from the annual Graduation ceremony were posted online (starting in 1998). The photos were available to web site visitors the next morning after the ceremony, which for the first time, made the photos accessible to anyone with a computer. Normally, it's too late for the photos to appear in the yearbook, so the web site was established as the best place to showcase them. Thomas also established an online Math Contest with the help of Mr. Holder. Through a special deal with Texas Instruments, winners of the contest could win a TI calculator by correctly answering math questions posted online, and then mailing them to the school. The contest was quite successful with winners from all over, however, it became too hard to administer, and the deal with Texas Instruments was only a one time thing. The contest did not continue. For several years, Thomas Wetmore did an excellent job maintaining the web site, and even received recognition for his efforts at a school awards ceremony. After he graduated, he was unable to continuing maintaining the web site as he moved into university. The web site then become the responsibility of Paul Holder, the school Department Head of Math. In the July of 2001, Mr. Holder registered the sjhigh.ca domain for the first time. When the SJHS web page was first created, it was a time when long web addresses were acceptable, and common-place. However, in recent years, more sites have moved towards personalized domains. It become progressively harder for Mr. Holder to maintain the web site on his own, so it was not updated very often, and hardly ever changed. 
In the May of 2002, Paul Saulnier began working on the web site. Once again, a total transformation was made. With the introduction of frames, the design was totally new. The frames allowed easier and more efficient navigation of the site. Within months, Saint John High's web site emerged as an example for other schools to look up. Updated several times a week, it easily out-does all other schools which struggle to updates a few times a year. More and more students, not just alumni, began to click on sjhigh.ca. And for good reasons too. New services began to pop-up. A weekly web poll was added for the entertainment of all web site visitors. News, and event photos began to increase in demand. Paul Saulnier soon realized that if the web site's success were to continue, he could not do it all himself. Early in September, an invitiation for students to work on the web site was made over the morning announcements. Many responded. The first school Web Crew was formed. 
In the month of October 2002, Paul Saulnier began to feel the restrictions of the current NBNet account. Finally, the decision was finalized to move all web services from NBNet to another web host. The Student Council agreed to pay for the new account, which allowed the addition of the Forums. These new forum services would allow students to express themselves in a way that was never possible before. The news began to spread by word-of-mouth. Many students quickly began to take advantages of the ability to talk with each other online, and make suggestions, and talk directly with the SRC. A wide variety of discussions spawned from school events, to debates, to religion. A group of dedicated Moderators worked to make sure the forum services were kept clean, and good for school image. Finally, on November 11th, 2002, at 12:46 AM in the morning, after a long time of waiting, sjhigh.ca reached a milestone. It was at this time that the counter registered a total of 100,000 hits. Saint John High not only had the best school site around, it also had the busiest.
Related links: |
