02/22/04

By JOHN KERNELL Special to The Mississippi Press

OCEAN SPRINGS -- In April of 2001 Lonnie Root of Ocean Springs -- by day a purchasing agent for the Department of the Navy, by night a local graphic designer -- began constructing something no self-respecting Mississippi Gulf Coast tourist destination can afford to be without these days: a Web site.

Three months and a few hundred hours later, "Ocean Springs on the World Wide Web" was up and running.

Three-and-a-half years and a few thousand hours later, it still is!

Except that now it has been expanded to 78 pages and countless photographs and includes a number of community and commercial sponsors and supporters who help keep it running.

Root notes that the time spent in building and maintaining such an ambitious site runs into the "thousands of hours" and involves expensive hardware and software. Without community support, it simply could not exist.

You can see Lonnie Root's labor of love by going directly to its URL at: http://www.oceansprings-ms.com/

Or, if you put the words "Ocean Springs" in any reputable search engine, such as www.google.com, the little city's new Web site comes up number one on the entire Internet and you can simply click on its link!

The current site's content is typical but also critical to providing usable current information to prospective visitors and residents alike:

How to get to Ocean Springs

Area attractions including a number of maps and directions to lodging, fishing and charter boats, golf courses, shopping, restaurants, casinos, beaches, parks, ball fields and tennis courts

Locations of churches and times of services

Calendar of events

Photo albums

Historic al information and photos

A special section devoted to the Ocean Springs Art Community

A Relocation Guide

Links to official County & City Web sites

School system information

Geographical Information

Organizations

Reunions

Links to other official and commercial Web sites

Since May of 2002, according to Lonnie, more than 100,000 unique and individual visitors from all over the world have looked at more than a million "page views" from the site.

Asked what gave him the idea to build a site for the city, Lonnie said, "I've had a love for photography since I was 12 years old. I was a member of the Ocean Springs Art Association, have held exhibits throughout the Coast and even won some awards for my work. When the Internet came along, it just seemed natural that Ocean Springs would be my next exhibit' but on an international level.

"Ocean Springs is such a wonderful and unique community that it seemed a shame not to show it off to the whole world. Which is exactly what the site has done. We've had visitors as far off as Belgium, Italy, Asia and the Caribbean."

Root also spends up to an hour or two every day just answering e-mails. He calls them "the biggest reward for building the site."

Content of the electronic correspondence tends to be mostly information seeking but occasionally an odd request or two shows up on Lonnie's monitor to add spice to his job.

Some typical examples:

From a gourmet: "I am in the military and was down at Keesler AFB for school. While there I was introduced to Tato Nuts and would like to know more about them."

From an artist: "I am an artist in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and am requesting an application for the Peter Anderson Art Show."

From an outdoorsy person in love: Would you please E-mail me some ideas of where to hold a wedding there -- other than churches?"

Seeking an unusual business referral: "I don't know if you can assist my friend who has been trying to find a reputable company to tow an MG car from your area to Canada.

From an aficionado: "Can you help me find any haunted' locations in Ocean Springs. I am looking in particular for a graveyard I think is called the rock and roll graveyard."

Asked where he sees his Web site and local use of the Internet to promote the area advancing in light of Leland Speed, the new Mississippi economic development director's, recently stated intention to make tourism the state's number one service industry, Lonnie said, "These days you would be hard pressed to find anyone who makes travel plans without researching their destinations on the Internet. I hope that our Web site in some way has helped to bring us visitors who might have passed us over if we didn't exist and will continue to do so."

Freelancer John Kernell can be reached at j.kernell@worldnet.att.net.