Tuesday, August 29, 2000
By LORRIE DELK
The Ledger
EAGLE LAKE -- When Lake Region High School's yearbook staff brainstormed titles for its 1999-2000 yearbook last year, they decided upon www.LR2000.com to reflect today's "dot-com era."
A Web search revealed nothing on the Internet with that address. So school administrators were shocked when, a day after distributing yearbooks, talk of a French adult Web site at that address became the buzz around school.
The mix-up has caused great consternation for Principal Stephen White and yearbook adviser Jane Brammer, but for the first time in the school's five-year history, the yearbooks have sold out, Brammer said.
"I ordered about 75 extra, and we usually have 30 or 40 left," Brammer said. "But I don't have any this year."
Brammer, eagerly wanting to put the incident behind her, won't be ordering any more, she said.
Brammer couldn't believe her ears when a student told her last week that www.lr2000.com was an adult site, she said.
She distributed yearbooks Aug. 21, and the phone calls started the next day.
White said he has fielded about 100 calls from parents who, often between peals of laughter, wanted an explanation.
"A writer in California couldn't have come up with a better way for how to give a principal a heart attack," White said of the mix-up.
Fortunately, White said, parents understood there was no maliciousness involved in the yearbook's title. The students simply wanted to "reflect the dot-com era in which they now live."
"It was all a horrible coincidence," he said. "It's like a B movie.
"You are talking to a guy who reads every senior bequeath and every article in the school newspaper to make sure everything is appropriate," White said. "You are talking to a guy who is on top of all of that. This is a principal's nightmare."
The fiasco hasn't brought Brammer sweet dreams, either. She said she thought the yearbook staff took the necessary precaution in June 1999 when they checked the Internet, and the address didn't exist. They had no way of knowing that in December, a French company called Loisirs 2000 would claim the address.
Loisirs, meaning leisure, advertises that it isn't a pornographic site but a "freedom" site that promises total confidentiality.
Parents also called Brammer about the Web address, and most found the incident laughable, she said.
But Brammer wasn't laughing when the yearbook goof landed on WFLZ-FM's "M.J. and B.J. Show" Friday morning. As she drove to work, she listened to the two disc jockeys discuss the incident and question the odds of the address belonging to an adult site, rather than any other business on the Internet.
"I was having a heart attack on the way to work," Brammer said.
Brittany Bairley, a 15-year-old Lake Region High sophomore, also heard the radio broadcast.
"It kind of came as a shock," Bairley said. "It's just kind of weird to hear about a thing like that happening at your school."
Bairley said students know none of this was intentional.
This year's yearbook theme was "2000 reasons why we love Lake Region," Brammer said.
The fictitious Internet address fit into the theme, Brammer said. The staff tossed around ideas like "lakeregion2000," and "thunder2000," but the publishing company's artist suggested a shorter title so the letters could be larger.
The school's actual Web site -- http://ddi.digital.net/~lregion/ -- was out of the question.
"We just wanted something short and catchy," she said.
Brammer said she now understands the problem could have been avoided by registering the address. Companies like Network Solutions provide address registration for $35 annually. But since the address was fictitious, registering it never occurred to her.
"Since it had no real usage, I don't see why they would have wanted to do that," said Steven Chayt, Lake Region High's communication technology instructor. "I can't imagine why they would have done that just for the (yearbook) cover."
Brammer said the school has been fortunate in that everyone has realized this was an honest mistake. Still, it will be a long time before she agrees to use an Internet address in a yearbook title, she said, laughing.
White is looking forward to the day when he, too, can laugh about the ordeal.
"Everybody laughs about it," White said. "Maybe five years from now I'll laugh, but there's nothing funny about it right now."
LOL!