Oceana Native Creates Websites

A desire to keep in touch with friends and family from home has prompted a former Oceana resident to develop web sites about Wyoming County.

James Lee "Jim" Cook of Texas, a 1982 OHS graduate, has spent most of his career in the military away from the town where he grew up. His need to stay connected had him spending many hours on the Internet, looking for things about home and West Virginia.

"I found out there was very little on the Internet for West Virginia and Wyoming County," Cook James Lee "Jim" Cook commented. "So, I figured if I was looking, then other people were looking, so I decided to put information on the Internet myself. There are a lot of people from out of state who are interested in Wyoming County."

Cook developed a genealogy site about Wyoming County in November 1996, and very recently, has created a site for the Oceana Alumni Association which has an abundance of information about Oceana High School. Both are growing into very detailed sites.

The genealogy site (wyomingcountyheritage.com) contains a variety of information about area residents including family photos, death records, communities, history on the county itself, schools, churches, and a complete list of cemeteries. Also included are information on folklore, land grants, military, petroglyphs, and publications. The site was developed to aid those in performing genealogy research in present day Wyoming County and to help keep the memories and traditions of the region alive for future generations.

Cook says that a lot of the information from his sites are provided to him by other people. "Once they visit my site and see something missing, they send it to me," he noted. "The other information I get when I go home for visits. I seem to spend every vacation at the courthouse in Pineville, obtaining information for my sites."

The site for the OHS Alumni Association (www.ohsalumni.com), which Cook volunteered to do for the Association, is a must-see for all who ever attended Oceana High School. While it contains a lot of information about the Alumni Association itself, such as photos of events, announcement of upcoming events, how to be a member, how to contact the Association, Hall of Fame, etc., it also has photos from yearbooks of individuals as well as ball teams, cheerleaders, and homecoming queens. The covers of the yearbooks are also displayed. Cook said that he does have some years missing, including 1950, 1953, 1964-66, several from the 1970's, and he needs 1989-2002. Anyone with these yearbooks are urged to scan photos from them and send them to Cook to be included on the site. Pictures and stories of alumni who have earned special recognition are also provided.

A message board to communicate with other classmates is one attraction on the site for which Cook hopes more people will take advantage. The message board is designed very similar to Classmates.com, which Cook points out charges $40 to use. His site gives the same opportunity, but is free of charge.

After graduation from OHS, Cook joined the US Air Force where he attended technical school at Lowry AFB in Colorado from September 1982 to April 1983 before being transferred to K.I. Sawyer, Michigan, where he was in charge of avionics maintenance for B52's until November 1987. He then worked at Dyess AFB in avionics maintenance for B1 bombers until July 1991. Afterward, he went to Edwards AFB in California where he participated in the B2 Test Program until October 1997. Cook was recently promoted from Technical Sergeant to Master Sergeant at Dyess, where he works in quality assurance, inspecting B1 bombers. His job is to make sure the people working on the bombers are following regulations.

The son of Donnie Cook and Arbutus Brown, Cook is married to Dawn Cook of Los Angeles, California, and they have two daughters, Jamie and Erin. Cook also has a daughter, Callie Beth, from a previous marriage.