History of Kfeir.com
By Denise Mickel Russell
1996 - 2024
Let’s talk about our website, Kfeir.com!
I did a little digging to find out the history of our website and with the help of Kevin and James Donley, I found out quite a bit. Our website was originally built in 1996 in GeoCities by Dr. Diann Dee Michael who was the Kfeirian President at the time. Diann choose the Heartland Neighborhood of GeoCities to add Kfeirian information and pictures from past reunions. Content continued to be added for the next few years and included color photos and a complete update of the 64th reunion and information for the upcoming 65th reunion. Kevin created the first Kfeirian Family Tree Genealogy Page on our GeoCities site which included the history of our tree and links to dozens of genealogy resources available at the time. Unfortunately this original website no longer exists.
By the year 2000, the board decided it was time for the reunion to have its own website with its own domain name and thus, http://www.kfeir.com was born and still exists today. In 2001 Kevin Donley served as the Webmaster for the site which continued to grow and housed the latest pictures from reunions, all Kfeirian updates, Scholarship information including the application, family trees and even Kfeirian merchandise.
In 2007, in an effort to keep up with changing technology, James Donley was asked to determine the best way to evolve the site into a modern website and at that point the site was rewritten in Wordpress using the IPower Web Hosting service. This update brought us the introduction to the main heading that we still use today featuring a picture of the Village of Kfeir, the Lebanese, United States, Canadian and Brazilian flags and the "Welcome to Kfeir" sign that you can see on the Home page.
By 2014, the board decided that the website needed an update again and we hired a mother/daughter team to give the website a facelift. At that time, the site was moved to Weebly, still using IPower Web Hosting and I became the Web Site Administrator and have held this position ever since. From that point on, we started adding historical information dating back as far as 1928. We did this by asking everyone to provide any reunion information that you may have such as newspaper articles, programs, schedule of events and pictures from past reunions. As these documents were sent in, they were scanned and added to the appropriate reunion year. They were also categorized and sent to Marshall University for safekeeping in the Special Collections Department. In 2023 Becky Rahal Anderson began working with me to learn how to update the site.
Over the years, a new section on the website was started for family stories. This is my favorite section of the website because the stories are about our family members that tell their individual tales either from their family members who wrote the stories and sometimes directly from the person who the story is about.
When you visit the Kfeirian website, be sure to check out the Foundation page where you will find information about our Board of Trustees, Scholarship Information and several historical bits of information that may interest you. Our Reunion page is a place where you can see information from past reunions and look for the reunions that you attended. Send in your pictures or any other documentation that you may have from a reunion so that we can include them on the appropriate reunion page. Check out the Family News page and be sure to send us your stories and information about what is going on in your family. You could spend hours looking for your relatives once you connect to the Kfeirian tree which you can do at the Family Tree page and learn how you are connected to other Kfeirians. Visit the Newsletters section and have a chance to view past newsletters. And then check out the Village of Kfeir section where you can read about your cousins who have visited Kfeir in the past.
In addition to all the information on Kfeir.com, you may also enjoy checking out our Facebook and Instagram page. The links to all of our social media are listed on the Home page. We would love to hear back from you if you have something to add to the website. Just send an email to reunion@kfeir.com and let us know how you can help.
2025
At the 2024 reunion which was held in Charlotte, NC, we had a new Kfeirian join us for the weekend, Joshua Michael Allen (Michael family) . I met Joshua in the Hospitality Room and he let me know that he was a web developer with VSIBL Branding and would like to work with us on updating the website. It was clearly time to do this as the site was aging and needed a new look and it was getting harder to work with the IPower service provider. After a review with the Board of Trustees, we took Joshua up on his offer and he began the tedious job of moving all of the information over to the new site which was built with WordPress using Breakdance.
The new website has a modern design, an intuitive layout and is powered by the latest web technology to ensure a seamless experience for all visitors. The site is very extensive spanning over 90 years and includes thousands of images and files. The site was launched in November 2025 keeping the Kfeir.com website name.
As we roll out the new site, we invite you to explore all its exciting features - including Reunion details, Scholarship information, Family History stories, the Family Tree, recipes from our members and so much more! We'd love to hear from you! Your feedback and suggestions are always welcome as we continue improving the site to make Kfeir.com the very best it can be for all Kfeirians.
As you visit the site, we hope that you will rediscover Kfeir.com - Your home for all things Kfeirian!
