Work experience: I learned programming in 1960 on a vacuum-tube computer (an IBM 704) during a summer job at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Whippany, NJ, and wrote a set of subroutines in assembler to perform matrix operations modulo p. And I programmed in GAT on the Univac 1105 at UNC-Chapel Hill while in graduate school.

1961-7 I worked as a programmer for Western Electric, in Burlington, NC. The computer I used was the same IBM 704 I had used at Bell Labs — it had been shipped to Bell Labs in Winston Salem. My punched cards rode by truck between Burlington and Winston Salem.

From 1967 until I retired in 1999, I provided computer support at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Although I started as an assembler and Fortran programmer, most of my work involved helping students, faculty, and staff use the university’s computer facilities through instruction manuals, classes, and a Help Desk. In 1988, I was asked to coordinate the development of an electronic campus information service using VTX on a DEC VAX computer. That service evolved into a Gopher service and then the World Wide Web. When I retired, I was Campus Webmaster and a Tier 2 Analyst in the IT Response Center (Help Desk).

In 1992, I wrote an article on the history, software options, maintenance issues, and future directions of Campus-Wide Information Systems (CWISs) which was published in Advances in Library Automation and Networking, Volume 5, 1994. I was a keynote speaker at the AARNet conference in Brisbane, Australia, 1992, where I spoke about maintenance issues of CWISs while demonstrating the UNC-Chapel Hill system, live on the Internet (Video Part A and Video Part B). I visited seven university campuses while in Australia, discussing CWIS issues with people who were bringing up services on their campuses. I also authored a chapter on CWISs for the book The Internet Unleashed, published by Sams.net, 1994.

Community networking: In 1989, I was invited to join a local effort to provide a community information service based on Santa Monica’s Public Electronic Network (PEN) and Cleveland’s Free-Net. We incorporated in 1990 as Public Information Network, Inc. and developed a menu-oriented directory of local information as Triangle Free-Net. The evolution of Triangle Free-Net closely paralleled the evolution of the campus information service. As we developed policies and procedures on campus, I adopted them for our Free-Net. Doing business as RTPnet, we provided hosting services for nonprofits from 1995 until 2014.

RTPnet put a public access computer in Orange County Public Library in 1996, which led us into a period of working with computer labs in low income neighborhoods, helping with PC maintenance, and coordinating teaching computer classes. We joined CTCNet, coordinated conferences, and provided nine VISTAs in support of local community technology centers during 2000-2005, all supported with membership fees for hosting services.

I started learning Drupal and CiviCRM in 2006 hoping to host RTPnet member websites under one installation of the software, but that didn’t work out.

In 2008 the focus of RTPnet support and my volunteer work shifted to the group Triangle 501 Tech Club (NTEN supported)/Triangle NetTuesday (NetSquared supported). We now call the group NCTech4Good and have 1,200 Meetup.com members. NCTech4Good restarted annual conferences in 2010 with PINInc/RTPnet as the fiscal agent. We used Drupal and CiviCRM for the website and conference registration but converted the conference website to WordPress in 2014 when RTPnet shut down.

Conferences and networking: I’ve attended lots of great conferences over the years, presenting at some of them, and I got to meet lots of interesting people. In the 70s and 80s there were IBM Share conferences and EDUCOM conferences. Four of us from UNC-Chapel Hill attended The Second International WWW Conference ’94: Mosaic and the Web in Chicago.

At the 1994 and 1995 Ties that Bind Conferences at Apple in Cupertino, I got acquainted with some of the leaders of community networking, including Tom Grundner, Steve Cisler, and Howard Rheingold.

I went to my first CTCNet conference in 1996 (and posted notes), and several CTCNet conferences after that. I’ve been to many of the NTEN conferences since 2003.

Archives: I kept copies of all of the UNC Computation Center newsletters and most of the other publications. Someone gave me a box containing really old Computation Center stuff – photos of the Univac 1105, news clippings, brochures, the program for the dedication of the Computation Center, and more. I also collected a lot of information about Public Information Network, Inc. and community networking, and I inherited more materials collected by other Board members.

I organized RTPnet’s paper archives, scanned what I didn’t have in electronic format, put it on the web at http://www.ibiblio.org/rtpnet/, and donated the physical materials to the Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill. The library’s archivist said it was their first archive donated in both printed and electronic form.

And, in preparation for the 50^th anniversary of computing at UNC-Chapel Hill, I created a Drupal site at http://www.ibiblio.org/comphist/, borrowed back from university archives materials I had given them, scanned them and put them on the website. The slide show on the home page was suggested by folks at a local Drupal meeting when I demoed the website.

Education: I grew up in Suffern, NY, and had several outstanding teachers at Suffern High School, I was a baton twirler and won a local championship.

I went to the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro (now UNC-Greensboro) 1955-57 and then transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill. Women weren’t accepted as freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill until 1959. I was a majorette my senior year at Chapel Hill. During my senior year, one of my math professors (Alfred T. Brauer) encouraged me to go to graduate school, which I did, studying matrix theory under Dr. Brauer. He took credit for my meeting my husband because if I hadn’t gone to graduate school, I wouldn’t have met him.

Other stuff: I married Shannon Hallman June 3, 1961. Shannon died in December 2011.

Shannon and I like to cook. When I started working on the campus information system, I wanted some interesting stuff in it, beyond course catalogs, job postings, newsletters, and bus schedules, so I typed up some of my favorite recipes and put them online in my personal home page. I used to get occasional email from people who searched and found a favorite recipe in my files, but my cookbook’s ranking isn’t very high any more. The most popular recipe is Shannon’s mother’s eggnog.

We had some naturalized daffodils in our yard when we bought our house in 1965. Over the years, I added a lot of varieties and every year I divided and replant a lot of them. There are thousands of them now and they bloom from mid February until May.

Shannon and I took some really nice trips, including a few to islands in Scotland with North Carolina Botanical Garden people. I took pictures of our last trip and a trip to national parks.

My nephew Mark Huntress and his wife Adrienne came to Chapel Hill in 2011 for Adrienne to attend graduate school. They’ve stayed and bought my house in 2014 after I moved to Galloway Ridge.