CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: AREA SCHOOLS AND MUSIC PROGRAMS STRUT THEIR STUFF TO WORLD (COLUMN 59)

One of the great things about the Internet is that you can travel the globe from your living room, or you can check out your neighbors and friends online.

A growing number of local folks and organizations are going online with their own web pages. We've found a few. We know there are a lot more out there.

Today we're going to talk about some local educational groups and organizations with web pages, but we'd really like to publicize well-done personal and business pages in the future.

Warning for today's column: The addresses aren't always so nice. You might consider starting at SEMissourian.com. All the sites are hotlinked from our column there.

First stop, If you want to learn more about Cape Girardeau Central High's Marching Tiger band, you can find it at

http://biology.semo.edu/web/wlilly/chsband/chsband.html

Joni: You are greeted with a photo of the band. You can find highlights in music and pictures, contests and CHS band links. You can find out that 1996 was a great year for the Marching Tigers, they marched at five contests, for the President of the United States and down Main Street at Disney World. You get to see pictures of some of their performances.

Peggy: The marching band season this year promises to be as eventful. You can see their performance schedule and how they fared in contests so far this year. Still to come, a football game Friday and a contest in St. Louis. You can also see pictures from this year's season. Patience surfers, lots of photos may mean some waits.

Joni: It brings back memories, doesn't it? We were both in the marching band.

Peggy: Why yes it does. The web site tells facts about the band, its size and history, and members of the band boosters, including Walt Lilly, secretary of the band boosters. He's the CHS Band webmaster. No wonder he's interested in promoting the band.

Joni: Web sites are a great way to spread the news of these schools and organizations, not just for relatives but to anyone.

Peggy: For marching band fans, you can follow links on this page to a number of other web pages for marching bands. Let's take a look at the Marquand Music Makers.

http://members.aol.com/MZMMakers/page.html

Joni: It's rocking and rolling with live music. This site tells us Marquand is an "itty bitty town" in Southeast Missouri and the school district has about 250 students K through 12. You are listening to "Rock around the Clock" and it says to turn it up. We had to turn it down. People in the office thought we were having too much fun.

Peggy: The web site serves two purposes -- public relations for the community and the world and a starting point for research on music. But 458 people beat us to the site.

Joni: Under concerts for kids, you can learn about upcoming performances and in the photo album, you can see smiling faces from Marquand. They also have a calendar of events, information on fund-raisers and you can sign the guest book. The nice thing about the World Wide Web, it doesn't matter if you are small or large. Everyone has the same forum.

Peggy: While we're on the marching band beat, let's look at one more from Poplar Bluff High School. A high school senior, Derek Jeffries, built the page in hopes of letting the community know how the band is doing and perhaps to raise some money. He plans to pass it on to another student when he moves on to college.

www.semo.net/org/shomeband

Joni: You can learn more about Poplar Bluff's Marching Band, Concert Band, the Winter Guard and the Jazz Band. They call themselves the Sho-Me Band. I didn't know that. What is the Winter Guard?

Peggy: Oh no. There is no information about the Winter Guard at this time. We'll have to check back later. Instead let's look at the page developed by St. Mary Cathedral Grade School in Cape Girardeau. It was developed by the school's band teacher, Jim Hindman.

www.showme.net/StMary

Joni: In the Internet, spelling counts. So does capitalization. Make sure to type a capital S and a capital M or you won't get there. This is a really nice page. It tells about the school, its mission, the church and you can meet the class of the month.

Peggy: This month it is Mrs. Haring's fifth-grade class. And we see photos of them in Beginning Band. It says 21 of them have taken band this year. Good show.

Joni: On a tour of the school, you can see the second, third and fourth grade classrooms. Other grades are coming soon. The site also lists all the teachers, staff, school board and home and school officers, and many of the staff have e-mail addresses. We're impressed.

Peggy: Oak Ridge schools also have a fine web site. The author of these pages is Dillon Stahlheber, a student at Oak Ridge High. They've been on the web since February 1996.

www.showme.net/ork12/

Joni: You can find out more about the district's history and government, sciences, art, English, music, business, technology, mathematics, sports, Stream Team, district report card, superintendent's welcome, counselor's office, the library, school calendar, Parents as Teachers, Reading Recovery and adult education. Whew, that's a mouthful.

Peggy: On the District Report Card page, you can find Oak Ridge students' mastery and achievement scores, hours of attendance, average teacher salaries and much more. We stole a story idea off here once on the district's Stream Team. See how useful these web pages are?

Joni: Next week, we'll take a look at some of the business web pages in the area and two weeks from today, stay tuned for a preview of the new Southeast Missouri State University web site. What's your favorite local site on the Internet? E-mail us at click@semissourian.com

See you in Cyberspace.

Joni Adams and Peggy Scott are members of the Southeast Missourian online staff.