Classmates.com Goes Back to School With Jackie Kennedy, Jeff Bezos, Britney Spears and Jim Carrey; Before They Were Stars, They Already Mastered Focus…

Business Wire, Oct 5, 2000

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 5, 2000

ClassMates.com, the largest online high school alumni community and celebrity yearbook collection, has acquired the high school yearbooks of top celebrities to add to its famous Yearbook Archives.

Just in time for the back-to-school season, 106 yearbooks were acquired to add to the over 2,000 books already in place.

The ClassMates.com Yearbook Archives is the world's largest collection of celebrity high school yearbooks. The Archives includes 10,000 images of over 2,000 of the 20th Century's greatest names from entertainment, sports, politics, business and infamy. Jared Poppel, Director of the ClassMates.com Yearbook Archives, notes that many students in high school that went on to become famous were already very active and showing signs of reaching for glory.

"The thing that sets today's public figures apart from other students was their singular focus on being successful at everything they did. Today's students have the same opportunities," says Poppel. "Sheryl Crow was an actress and singer in high school, as you might expect, but she was also a track star, drum majorette, and member of the National Honor Society. Senator, and now vice-presidential candidate, Joseph Lieberman was the class president and voted both most popular and most likely to succeed, a member of the cheer committee, and helped found the school's jazz club. They didn't just participate, they excelled in all of their activities, and they had a lot of fun along the way."

Highlights of the new additions to the ClassMates.com Yearbook Archives collection are Christina Aguilera, George W. Bush, Vince Carter, Steve Case, Fidel Castro, Hayden Christensen, Gary Cooper, Al Gore, Richard Hatch (Survivor Winner), Faith Hill, Enrique Iglesias, Marion Jones, Lucy Liu, Peyton Manning, Piper Perabo, "The Rock", Carlos Santana, Britney Spears, Hilary Swank, and Denzel Washington.

Many of the images from these books, as well as from the rest of the collection, are part of the Celebrity Yearbook feature, available on ClassMates.com.

About ClassMates.com

ClassMates.com (http://www.classmates.com) was founded in 1995 and has millions of registered users. More than 22,000 join each day from the US and Canada to reconnect with their past. ClassMates.com generates over 150 million page views monthly from its 250,000 daily visitors. Nielsen/NetRatings recently ranked ClassMates.com in the top 50 of the most highly trafficked Web properties on the Internet. Its military directory offers over 250,000 registrants. The ClassMates.com website include links to reunion resources, message boards, celebrity yearbook photo games and trivia, and several free offers with paid membership.

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit http://www.ClassMates.com, and contact to inquire about a free membership to ClassMates.com.

ClassMates.com is a trademark of ClassMates Online, Inc.