Thank You Moderators

[RogerDuke]

Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is standing in front of us. Both of these holidays remind us of how much we have to be thankful for.

The moderators of the HazzardNet aren't eligible to receive the Fan of the Month award and since Santa is watching we're not going to break the rules. We are going to bend them a little by saving the best for last and designating the final month of the year as a time to honor our moderators.

Meadowmufn, MaryAnne and Brian are like parents to us. If it weren't for them we wouldn't exist. We might not owe them our physical lives but we certainly owe them thanks for giving us a very important part of our lives.....the part where we come together as a family to honor and pay tribute to the greatest show to ever grace a television.

The HazzardNet has been around for over 10 years now. It's a lot like a small town. Thousands of people have lived here in the last decade. Hundreds of them are active in the community and millions of tourists have passed through checking out this friendly little place.

Pardon another analogy but Meadowmufn, MaryAnne and Brian are the founders of this town and should have statutes in the town square. (Hmmm, I wonder which statute would accumulate the most bird droppings?)

The history of the HazzardNet is the stuff of legends with Brian and MaryAnne following our Supreme Superior Commander (Meadowmufn) and making Dukes of Hazzard history by providing a place for Hazzardites all over the world to hang out together.

The Dukes of Hazzard is many things to many people. Everybody has their own reasons to love the show. Some folks here have been fans since the show first came out and some here are teenagers who have the very important task of handing the tradition down to future generations long after the older folks have passed on to Hazzard heaven.

Having a place like the HazzardNet to express our love of all things Hazzard is a blessing to serious and casual fans alike. Without our moderators creating and maintaining this place, a whole town full of folks would be like lost sheep in the desert without any direction (I'll skip the shepherd thing. Two analogies are enough in one tribute)

The HazzardNet isn't simply just a website on a computer. It's a place we come together to celebrate the real spirit of Hazzard County. It's a place where we come to enjoy God, family, fun, adventure, community spirit and something that we don't have enough of in this old world, happy endings. Fortunately for us, there'll be no ending for the HazzardNet. This place will be here as long as the internet exists. As far as the happy part goes, the HazzardNet is the very defintion of the word "happy" to us Dukes fans.

This happy place might not have an ending but it certainly had a humble beginning and thanks to Meadowmufn, Brian and MaryAnne, the millions of smiles and laughs created because of its existence are just getting started.

Thanks for all you do moderators. We appreciate you and we love you.

[HossC]

I haven't got a lot to add to Roger's comments, other than I whole-heartedly agree. Well done mods, and I hope you enjoy your 15 minutes of fame (well, 31 days ).

[Meadowmufn]

Aw shucks. LOL. Thanks, Roger, for that tribute. I'd say that building and maintaining HazzardNet has been a lot of work over the years, but can you really call it work when you love doing it? It's a labor of love. We'd have built it even if the rest of you hadn't come to join us, but we're so glad ya did. The three of us wouldn't have met so many wonderful people over the years and honestly, our lives would have been so very different without HazzardNet. So a hearty thank you to all of our members too.

I think we should also honor the cast and crew of the show, for without them, there'd be no inspiration for HazzardNet.

[MaryAnne]

Certainly if it hadn't been for this crazy show that debuted back in January of 1979, HazzardNet wouldn't have come into existence 20 years later, in 1999. And who woulda guessed back in '79 that any of it would have become what it became? Khee!

Thank ya Roger. Tho', I must apologize for something. Roger wrote a wonderful tribute at the time HNet was celebrating it's 10th anniversary last year. Since HNet Admin can't be considered for Fan of the Month, he wanted to bestow the title of Fan of the Decade upon one of us. He sent it to me and I was gonna add my own bit to it reflecting on 10 years of HNet and I never got to it. I tried. Honestly, I did. But I had a hard time with the fact that it's been ten years. I remember when HNet was in its infancy. I remember those early days. They don't seem all that long ago.

Well, despite calling myself a writer, I couldn't come up with anything profound to add to Roger's wonderful tribute, and the tribute remained unposted and unknown by all since last year. Maybe Roger's forgotten it, but I hadn't.

So I wanna post it here now, as an addition to Roger's accolades for the three of us. I'm sure Brian will agree that HNet wouldn't been anything if it were not for Mufn. And clearly Roger knows this too.

Therefore, I'm proud to present...

Roger Dukes Ode to Meadowmufn and Ten Years of HazzardNet

I've never met Meadowmufn. I have no idea what she looks like, what kind of car she drives or what state she lives in. For all I know she's 7 foot tall and lives in a mansion. Maybe she's 3 foot tall and lives in a shack. I don't have a clue. In fact, when I first came here, it took me a few months to figure out he wasn't a he after all. I can be closed-minded at times.

I'd never really used a computer before but nearly three years ago my daughter told me that you could find anything on the internet. Of course my first question was "Dukes of Hazzard?" She then proceeded to help me find the HazzardNet and the rest is history (so far it's the only thing useful that I've found for this contraption).

Before that fateful day, if someone would of told me that I'd soon have a hero that I knew nothing about I would have had a confused look on my face as big as Cletus Hogg's. At the time Jesse Duke and Charlie Daniels were my only two heros. Now I have three.

Truth be known, I do know one thing about my hero Meadowmufn, in addition to the fact that she's a she. That one thing makes all those things that I don't know seem trivial. I know she loves The Dukes of Hazzard and I know she loves them enough to create the HazzardNet over a decade ago.

I don't have a clue how much time, expense and sacrifice it took but I bet it was a lot and I'm sure glad she did it. I would imagine that the toughest part was having to put up with MaryAnne and Brian in those tender early years. Some things never change.

I'm sure it was a labor of love for those pioneers of the HazzardNet. Us lucky late-comers like myself are now reaping the benefits.

There's something special about the Dukes of Hazzard. That "something" caused Meadowmufn to want to create this site and caused us to follow our Supreme Superior Commander right down Old Mill Road past the big sign that says "Commisioner Hogg Welcomes You To Hazzard County".

Some of us love the Dukes of Hazzard for different reasons. We all have our favorite characters, episodes, seasons, quotes, scenes, etc. There's a wide variety of reasons we joined the HazzardNet. We come from different counties, states, countries and continents. One thing we don't differ on is our love and appreciation for the person who has brought us all together. We love you Meadowmufn. Because of you, we all have a second family bonded by a love that only exists by folks who's heart's in Hazzard County.

Long live the HazzardNet.

Long live Hazzard County.

Roger Duke

[Meadowmufn]

Wow, guys. I'm very humbled at the tribute and I can't put into words just yet how much I'm touched by it, but I'll give it a go later when I've had some time to gather my thoughts. Thank you.

[Brian Coltrane]

Roger, your graceful words are deeply appreciated. I'm usually quick to make a joke out of something, but...not this time. Because it hasn't always been easy to keep a site up and running day in and out with this kind of consistency. I know what Mufn has invested in time in money. I know what MaryAnne has put forth in her own efforts. And while my own contributions pale in comparison, they've been there too.

Even if you can't see it visibly, online, sometimes there's stuff going on behind the scenes, that doesn't involve the site directly - but that involves one of the three of us. I know that you can tell when something isn't right. When we're too quiet for awhile. Yes, we keep an eye on things and make sure the place is ok, but yes there's also times when one of us might be having to lean pretty hard on the other two, in order to keep going.

And that's why HazzardNet endures. It's bigger than the three of us. Yet it epitomizes our own friendships and kinships. Therefore we can't let it fall. It's not just a website. It's a community. It's your home too. It's family.

Thank you, Roger, and Hoss. And thank you to everybody out there who has visited HazzardNet, past or present. We'll be here when you stop by again.

Brian

[RogerDuke]

I'm usually quick to make a joke out of something, but...not this time.

Brian

I'm never going to write another serious post again because it's no fun around this place when Brian's not making a joke about something.

(Seriously Brian, your humor is one of the trademarks of this website....this place wouldn't be the same without it.)

[Meadowmufn]

Well, I've slept on it and I'm still at a loss for words, but I'll try to express my thoughts anyway. I'll probably get a little sentimental, so please excuse the mush.

In 1996, I started a little website called the Hazzard County Sheriff's Department. Little did I know it would attract so much attention. It was through that site that I met MaryAnne, ol' Rosco himself - Jimmie Best, my husband, and Brian... in that order.

In 1999, MaryAnne, Brian, and I decided to expand our horizons past the HCSD and make a DOH website for every fan or at the very least, a playground for ourselves if nobody else showed up. As Brian said, it became our home and we opened the doors for all the neighbors to come on in. And came they did!

Some of the old timers from HazzardNet's infancy are still around, some have moved on, some have found their way back like the Prodigal Son, but each of them left their own little mark on HazzardNet.

Looking back, in some respects, it's been a long, hard journey. We've had a lot of ups and downs. But as MaryAnne said, in other respects it's like we just started yesterday. And it does seem like we're just getting started because big things are in store for HazzardNet in 2011. (Yes, we're actually planning things, for once.)

I'm proud of all the effort we've put into HazzardNet, but as MaryAnne and Brian will attest, I'm my own worst critic and don't toot my own horn that often. So to hear such praise from someone else is very humbling.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

[Brian Coltrane]

Well-spoken, cousin. And I gotta thank Roger again for bringing this all up, 'cause it's good to pause and reflect a bit this time of year. When ya stop and look around, it's the people that matter. It's the people, that keep the place going.

But, as to not disappoint Roger, I won't stay serious too long. I gotta go half-bake some schemes. Post something to rile MaryAnne. Ya know, the usual. Maybe actually work on the newsletter. What day is it...

*flips calendar* December. Yep, I'm behind schedule. We're back to normal !