She abruptly left her daughter and moved to Tennessee to rejoin them, the woman said. The woman's mother could not be reached for comment. E-mails sent to graduates of schools outside Washington produced mostly positive responses. A few folks complained they couldn't find old friends because the Classmates directory still has only a slim minority of alumni in most classes, often 10 percent or less. Executives at Classmates said there is no average percentage for participation, which ranges widely from school to school.
Membership runs higher for classes that have big upcoming reunions.
But many echoed the enthusiasm of Paul D'Angelo, a software developer by day and drummer by night for a Northern Virginia rock band called Mudlark. His favorite came from Mike Terpak, who, it turned out, lives 15 minutes away in Great Falls and still plays music. The pals recently had dinner and jammed. That, of course, was what Conrads had in mind when he launched Classmates. His father had worked as a civilian contractor for the Navy, so the family had moved several times before Conrads attended high school in Subic Bay in the Philippines.