This page is a tribute to our Lancerette that few know her as anything other than the Lancer Lady. I'm sure you've seen her name and may have even spoken to her knowing she was connected with the site in some way but didn't know she was the mastermind and the artful doer of bringing this site to where it is today. There were a lot of people that helped her in giving suggestions on how to improve the site, provide event details, scan yearbooks, find deceased Lancers, add memorabilia and stories. Without her, we WOULD NOT have this beautiful site to enjoy and to have ALL the yearbooks at our fingertips.

It really took a LOT of time, energy, tenacity, and not to mention individual & family sacrifices, and the money it took to create, continually develop, and maintain a site like this for any period of time. She bought programs, paid for larger server space to house it all, learned how to make gifs, collages, and great effects that put the bling, or for us older folks, the PIZZAZZ!

The Lennox Lancer Home website is like no other school or alumni website anywhere on the internet, especially one that was created from scratch with absolutely no knowledge or experience on how to even begin such a feat. To put as much effort and devotion into an amateur website like this takes a special kind of person, crazy or sane, and to keep at it for 22 years through good and bad times of life, takes a real spit fire. Our Lancer Lady is that such person. Did I mention Spit Fire?? Oh my, she is certainly that, and a lot of fun.

The Beatles had Ringo Starr and Sir Paul McCartney, and at Lennox High School, we likewise have the combinations of those mega talents that created, developed and tirelessly maintained this magnificent website since 1999. Let me introduce you to the award winning, multi-platinum, and spit fire wife of fellow Class of 64 Lancer, Rick Curtiss, our very own Lancer Lady:

    Star (McCartney) Curtiss    

Yes, Star is her birth given name, and a star she is. Ya know, the Beach Boys were raised over on 115th Street, near the Cockatoo Inn and you probably recall they had a song, Be True to Your School.

This song is the epitome of Star's life and devotion to Lennox High School and preserving the memories we had there. That's why there are tens of thousands of pages embedded throughout and it's a treasure trove awaiting anyone wanting to spend tens of thousands of hours traipsing the royal Lancer halls to be immersed into yester-year. Lennox High School is closed, but not forgotten nor lost as it is alive herein.

What prompted Star to revolve her life around this monumental task? When the big Y2K was coming, her class of 1964 wanted to put together an all class reunion for everyone for all the classes from 1958 to 1984 to enjoy. Of course, this was before social media and all the varying ways to reunite electronically and to keep tabs. They wanted a way to communicate and for everyone to reconnect. Although when she started, there was very little to the site, she did create a manually applied bulletin board for people to share their thoughts and ask questions to find out where everyone is, or to just say Hi.

This website has been such a huge blessing to so many Lancers over the years, although perhaps only a 10th of those who attended Lennox know this site exists. Even so, people who didn't know about it, somehow their family members found out and let Star know their loved one passed away. The passing of Lancers created the birth of the In Memoriam page, an index of those she was told were gone. Because there was the Lancer Roll Call, Lancers were sharing their information about what was going on in their lives since graduation. She then took the pages for those who passed away and converted them into their Memorial page, adding the traditional purple background to signify a death in order to differentiate it from the previous page. As of late, along with the yearbooks, they are the most visited pages on the site.

Star loved to keep everyone in-tune with what was going on with reunions, gatherings, musical events by Lancers, and anything else that brought US together and kept the Lancer Family alive.

When asked why she never wanted her name published as the one who has tirelessly put this 8th Wonder of the World out here for us all, she said, it's not about or for me, it's about and for the Lancers. She gave to us far more than we will ever know.

WHAT CAUSED THE SITE TO SHUT DOWN FOR SO LONG?

Star has always been a high energy and spirited person with little to slow her down, even in her 70s, she was always on the go. Unfortunately, she developed a severe health problem and had to have surgery to correct it. It was a long road to recovery and naturally with all the treatments and medical appointments, she tires easily. Due to the nature and severity of the surgery, she doesn't have the stamina and the motor skills to work on the website any longer, which is very frustrating given her devotion to it and us. Regardless of that, she is still as witty as can be and sharp as razor. Today, the cancer is in remission. Due to all the medical appointments, and time in recovery, it is understandable that during that time that the website was not a priority, taking care of Star was her family's only concern, as would anyone having to deal with such a situation.

She was always been very protective of the website and extremely reluctant to allow anyone to have direct access to it. This was in part to having been approached to put ads on it (commercialize it) to help pay for it and would provide her income in the process. That was a BIG NO! Having seen other websites that gave in to the ads and the monetary trap that fell into ruin, she feared giving anyone access or even control over it would jeopardize and bastardize her pride and joy, she was weary of anyone who wanted to help or take over the site.

There were a few of us she trusted and would share access to the site and the FB page login information with to help her administer it all. Because I was one of those who helped her for so many years until I left all social media, I was approached in the spring of 2023 to see what I could do to help her get the site back up. That was when I learned of her health issues and offered to help get the site back up for her. After several months of working with her husband Rick, and son, Chad, they interviewed me to make sure I would abide by her wishes, which it turned out was exactly my thinking too and they slowly gave me access to the site to get it running and updated again. My promise to her was to not bastardize it and to this I am keeping my word.

I am thankful for Star, Rick and their son, Chad, in trusting me to continue taking care of Star's legacy of pride and joy legacy to the Lennox Lancer Alumni Community. If you are prayerful, please add her and her family to your prayers as they continue in the recovery journey, she feels them all.

THANK YOU STAR ,

- THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS FOR ALL YOU HAVE GIVEN US FOR THE PAST 24 YEARS GOING DOWN THIS AMAZING MEMORY LANE.

YOUR LOVE AND DEVOTION HAS TOUCHED US ALL AND WE APPRECIATE EVERY ONE OF THE BAZILLION HOURS YOU PUT INTO THIS MAGNIFICENT WEBSITE FOR US. YOU ARE AND WILL ALWAYS BE THE ONE AND ONLY OFFICIAL

LANCER LADY!

WE LOVE YOU AND PRAY FOR YOUR CONTINUED GOOD HEALTH AND HAPPINESS.

   ~ Mark May (Class of 1977)

      Created on November 12th, 2023

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