Way Before They Blogged - Jon Andrews

Jon recently celebrated his 40th birthday, so this picture of Jon is obviously from way, way, way, way before he blogged.

Way Before They Blogged - Rocki Stillson

Way before she blogged, my cousin Rocki was a sixth grade cheerleader for my sixth grade basketball team. Sixth grade was Rocki's last year living in Nappanee before moving to Arizona. I really wonder how her story would have turned out if her family's move west had never transpired.

This is my favorite picture that I found in the 1983 Nappanee Advance News archives. The picture is filled with friends from growing up, future really close friends and friends that are still friends today.

1983-84 Nappanee Middle School
Sixth Grade Cheerleaders
Go Bulldogs!

Click on the picture for the full size version.

Way Before They Blogged - Dick Pletcher

Kylee, Makenna and I spent some time perusing the booths at the Amish Acres Arts and Crafts Festival today. We stopped and talked to Dick Pletcher as he manned the gazebo microphone. He mentioned that he just doesn't have very much time to blog. I told him I I thought his stories about Amish Acres were really interesting and that I missed his updates. His post regarding the aftermath of the Nappanee tornado was the best one I read anywhere.

I remember listening to Dick announce the Art Festival events when I was kid, way before he blogged. As a matter of fact, I may have been at the festival the day this photo was taken for the Nappanee Advance News in 1983.

Way Before They Blogged - Derry Prenkert & Meagan Taylor

This is a short video from my high school graduation open house in 1990. Easily seen in the video are two people who author blogs that I link to: Derry Prenkert and Meagan Taylor. Derry and Meagan don't know each other and have probably never met, but here they are in the same video - way before they blogged. Who knows though, maybe they did meet at the open house and there was an early-teen romance kindling that I never new about. Yeah, probably not, they both look pretty bored in the video.

If you're from the Wa-Nee area, there are a number of other people in the video you may be able to identify.

Way Before They Blogged - Makenna

We started journaling with Kylee and Makenna when they were two years old. Their entries were dictated to either or Kristi or I. I'm not sure if this early journaling experience helped inspire Makenna or not, but she has loved writing ever since she could begin to manipulate a pencil. I looked through some of Makenna's old journals today. The first entry I could find that is composed entirely in her own handwriting was when she was four years old. Here are Makenna's first three entries, which were done sort of way before she blogged.

Way Before They Blogged - My Class Blog

Way before I blogged with my second grade class at Bremen, I started blogging with my second grade class at Eastlawn. The site, "Online Diary of Mr. Gall's Second Grade Class" went live with the first post on December 2, 1997. Twin Lakes took the site down earlier this year, but you can still read some of the posts on the Internet Archive.

Bloggers before there were blogs,
Mr. Gall's 1997-98 Class

Britany was one of the kids in my class that year. She is the girl on the right with the blue heart on her shirt. She was a wonderful girl to have in class and if you read over some of the posts from that school year, you will quickly notice what a terrific writer Britany was as a second grader.

We received a high school graduation open house invitation from Britany earlier this year. We couldn't make it to the open house, but when we took the kids to Indiana Beach a few week ago, we got to see Britany. She is doing well, cheerful as ever, working two jobs getting ready to go to college this fall with some nice academic scholarship money in tow.

Way Before They Blogged - Rob Henschen

Rob has been blogging for a couple years now. He sometimes writes about how uncoordinated he is. I'm not convinced though. Way before he blogged, in August 1983, The Nappanee Advance News reported that Rob was on the junior high division soccer team that "tied for the championship."

Click for the full size view.

Way Before They Blogged - Mark Slabaugh

I didn't think I was going to be able to come up with anything for Mark in this series, but I happened to spot this picture yesterday as I was searching for the picture of Kylee with the goat. This picture was taken in my backyard on the 4th of July in 2002. Mark is sitting in a lawn chair, seemingly enjoying the festivities. Mark didn't blog about this event; you know, it happened way before he blogged.

Click the picture for the full size version.

Way Before They Blogged

I'm starting a new series today called "Way Before They Blogged." Here's the premise:

• Take the list of "Blogs I Read" found on the right side of this page.
• Post something about as many of these bloggers as I can from way before they began blogging.

I have some really good ones already lined up. Out of the 13 current "Blogs I Read" links, I already have something in mind for 11 of them. So, if you are linked over there, you could be making an appearance on my blog from "way before you blogged" real soon. Stay tuned!

Kylee started blogging when she was six. She was a one-year-old in this picture (one of my favorites,) taken way before she blogged on July 1, 2002.