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Leaving Ricks
College, December 1998
By Troy Salo
Rexburg, Idaho’s natural
setting provided enough distractions to give the maveriks some
sense of life’s sensations. The weather was more melancholy
there than where most of them had grown up, but there were other
consolations. There was the remote splendor of the Teton
Mountains for backpacking, the thunderous vigor of the Snake
River for water sports, and the desolate dunes of St. Anthony
for frequent bon fires and other outings. There were also the
“home court” Teton bowling lanes where many maverik bowling
nights had taken place. But those comfortable surrounding were
about to change. It had come time for many of the maveriks to
move on to other schools. A few remained in Rexburg to finish
another semester of school with the returning second generation
of maveriks, but the large majority of the maverik kingdom was
about to be split up and scattered forever.
Most of the maveriks approached this time of change
with a much more assured confidence than the first time that the
kingdom had been split up. The difference this time was that the
scattering was more permanent. During the first scattering there
was the assurance that we would once again return triumphant to
our old stomping grounds, but this time there was not such an
assurance. Most of us were transferring to different schools and
many were nearing the point of marriage. Just before this change
was about to close in on us, we started to discuss how we could
create new ways to keep the maverik brotherhood strong during
this time of change and scattering. Eazy and T-BONE had joked a
couple of times about putting together a website to be posted on
the recently emerging World Wide Web, or Internet for short, but
these where just passing ideas. The Internet seemed to be the
wave of the future and since the maveriks had always been
fascinated with technology and the future, we decided to give it
a try.
In 1999, the recent trends toward open, high-speed,
digital networks with fiber optic and satellite links, as well
as the widespread use of the Internet and it’s technologies made
the concept of an information superhighway technically feasible.
This information superhighway became known as the World Wide
Web, or Internet. This seemed like the only logical choice for a
place for a brotherhood like the maveriks to gather. We decided
to use the Internet as the gathering point and future of the
maverik brotherhood. The only limitation was that we didn’t have
anyone who was well versed in the ways of the Internet. T-BONE
and DI had taken a web page development class together and had
learned the founding basics of web design. That proved to be all
we needed to get this website idea off the ground.
The first few incarnations of the maverik website where
pretty elementary and simple. They were basically just fancy
address books. But, that alone was a good start, because with
all of the changes ahead, there would be frequent address and
phone number changes. Keeping up with those alone, without the
help of the Internet and maverik web page, would have been quite
a task. It would have probably been too large a task to fit into
the busy lives of most maveriks. The graphics at first were very
simple and not very original. Eazy, being the undercover art-o-phile
that he is, began to work on some original graphics to make the
maverik website look more like, well the maveriks.
Meanwhile T-BONE moved to Hawaii to attend school at
BYUH. Leo was also there in Hawaii and most of the other
maveriks ended up at home in California, Kansas, or in Provo at
BYU. Without the help of the Internet, all those geographical
distances could have made collaboration and development on the
maverik website nearly impossible. But, several of the maveriks
had become very well trained in using email, which allowed many
contributors to the maverik website, share ideas and collaborate
on the site’s development.
The third version of the maverik website was the most
successful. It had much more functionality with the addition of
an enhanced member directory, a merchandise sales area, a forum,
and picture galleries celebrating the history of the maveriks.
Throughout the year 2000 T-BONE and Eazy worked together to add
more and more useful content and services to the site.
The website has created many memorable moments and
events. Using the website, Eric arranged a bowling tournament
for T-BONE’s bachelor party which was held in California in
August of 2000. Canuck helped arrange an essay contest with
prizes consisting of classic maverik merchandise obtained from
the corporate headquarters of the Maverick Country Stores. As
the new and improved maverik website picked up steam throughout
the year 2000, many maveriks added their own personal pages.
These personal pages were created as a place where the maveriks
could go and see what is going on in the lives of their brethren
who they may not get to see too often. The forum also became a
place where maveriks could go and have ongoing conversation
about whatever was on their minds. Those are just a few of the
most memorable events associated with the website.
The website has been successful in helping us reach
across the great distances the separate us all and helped us
maintain and build the maverik brotherhood bond that was created
in 1994 even stronger. With the addition of these accounts of
maverik history, the world will have a pretty good glimpse into
the past, present and future of the maverik kingdom.
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