I followed the url links and applied for all of the awards and also to become a CL. I thought I had struck oil when I found Petsburgh. I began joining some of Petsburgh's webrings and enjoying all there was to offer at the Petsburgh Station. When I came to Petsburgh for my community leader training, I was greeted by a wonderful mentor named Mona. She led me through my journey into Community Leader-hood. I was so nervous and wanted everything to be just perfect, that I took two full weeks making charts and tables for my assignments. I loved the training so much and had a lot of fun. Mona made it so pleasant. I graduated February 18 ,2000, my oldest daughter's birthday.

When I passed the final exam and was welcomed to the group I was overwhelmed with emails from Petsburgh volunteers welcoming me. I began immediately to search the "Blocks" assigned to me in the Stable by Paula who had just finished building the Community Center and was the new Co-Liaison. She was so professional and I was intimidated by her. I watched my spelling and grammar in every email and hoped that she would like me. I spent a lot of time working at scanning sites and sending them the stable award. I then joined the Petsburgh Site of the Week Committee and began sending url's to Paula, the Chair of the committee, and voting on the weekly award applicants.

I started taking free online HTML classes to better my skills and to help homesteaders. I began my site redesign from the old Geobuilder pages into new and improved straight html pages. I was later transferred to the Yard Angels where Mona became my new Co-Liaison.

During all this I found out that with the Yahoo/Geocities merger the Volunteer Program was dropped and Petsburgh was on its own. Then there were the wars, deceit, resignations and all the unpleasant incidents that accompany all legends. During all this Mona and Lisa were elected to the positions of Liaisons. TNT they called themselves.
In April 2000 I began to have some health problems I was determined to meet my CL responsibilities and kept on working. I found out in late April that I needed surgery. I held my breath and emailed SuSue, who at this time had become the new Co-Liaison of the Yard Angels, and told her about it. She was so comforting and encouraging to me that I was overwhelmed. I made my announcement about my surgery to the group soon after that. The surgery was scheduled for July 20, 2000. July came around very quickly and I was a wreck. I opened my email one late June day to find an announcement that the Liaisons had decided to start a Liaisons CL of the Month program. They had chosen someone and had a link to the page. When I clicked on the url I was wondering which of the great CL's was chosen. I about fell off my chair when I saw my name. Tears started running down my cheeks and I was for once speechless. I must have read the words from SuSue who had nominated me for the honorable position, at least a dozen times before I responded. The last line in the tribute said that Petsburgh was honored to call me their friend. I felt so loved that day and everyday since.

My surgery went very well and there was no ovarian cancer. One day in the fall of 2000, I received an email from Mona asking me to call her at home. I thought something must be really wrong. Nothing was wrong and everything was right! She asked me if I wanted to be a Co-Liaison. I said "Yes!" of course. She then told me that Sue (Catarific) had resigned and that I was to build a whole new Community Center and maintain the former Cattery Center, now known as Catsburgh, and the Pet Jungle. I was thrilled. I got to work right away updating the two centers and working on ideas for a new Community Center. My husband suggested working dogs. I played around with the thought for a while and came up with the 9 to 5 Working Animals Community Center and set out to building it. It has been a success. I then found a link at Committee Central to a Rescue Award special project. The site was abandoned and I, being the animal rights activist that I am, contacted Mona and Lisa and begged to take over the award site. They informed me that it was not a Petsburgh center and that there was no way to access it. I offered to build a new and improved one. TNT (Mona and Lisa) agreed immediately. I have to say that as far as creative freedom goes, these two wonderful ladies have never stomped on mine. The new Petsburgh Rescue Award thrives today and receives lots of form results from award applicants. Joan a CL in the Stable joined me as Co-Chair in January of 2000. It is my dream for the future that Award be given committee status.
SuSue went on LOA and the position of Community Leader Training Coordinator became available. I again begged Mona and Lisa for the opportunity to work on yet another great project. I was already a mentor at this time and some of my mentlings were, Ulla, with the cute Finnish writing, Carole who has now left us, and Trina/Catherine. Mona and Lisa discussed this idea and they decided to let me have at it. I have updated the training program to date (January 2000)
My story ends here in the present as I am training yet another new CL, updating the Community Centers, giving out awards, and searching for wonderful pet and animal sites for our beloved Petsburgh. The Legend of Petsburgh Lives! We survived on our own and have built Petsburgh into a family; a family that is growing larger everyday.

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