Two students at Starr's

Mill High School have made a name for themselves in the

community via the Internet, while providing a valuable

service for a number of civic organizations.

Ben Gregg and Michael

Matute, both seniors, are the men responsible for

PTCOnline, found at www.ptconline.org on the Web. It is a

collection of many sites of interest to residents of

Peachtree City, all provided free of charge to area

non-profit organizations.

The explanation on the site

for its existence is the claim that the teenagers simply

need to fight boredom. With the myriad activities and

academic accomplishments of these two, that does not seem

like a problem.

They became interested in

the Internet around 1995, when relatively few people knew

about it at all. Matute says he saw something about it on

television and asked his parents to hook him up.

Both young men use it

constantly - about three hours a day, according to

Gregg - doing homework, talking to friends, or

checking out whatever else interests them.

"We don't have to go

to the library anymore," said Matute. "We just

go online."

They originally talked

about putting together Web sites for profit, but they

simply do not have the time to manage such sites

properly, although they have recently been approached by

a couple of businesses about doing just that. They found

that they preferred doing Internet work for organizations

that could use a break from typical fees for such

services. It's ridiculous how much some companies charge

for so little work putting sites together, Gregg said.

"They [nonprofit

groups] need an Internet presence just like everybody

else," said Matute.

The senior class home page

is also their creation (Matute is the class secretary),

and they started and operated the school newspaper's site

before the school took it over.

Both students keep busy

with a wide variety of interests, such as participating

on the math team and playing some soccer. Gregg is an

Eagle Scout, while Matute is the president of the Youth

Advisory Board, a division of Peachtree City's Commission

on Children and Youth, and he also started -

surprise! - the YAB Web site in 1996.

According to Gregg, who

built his own computer, the two learn a great deal simply

by "fooling around." Both are taking an

impressive load of advanced placement classes this year,

and they rank in the top 20 percent of their class.

Ben is the son of Wayne and

Brooke Gregg, and he is likely bound for Georgia Tech

after graduation. Michael, the son of Juan and Lynne

Matute, is looking at Pomona College in California, where

he is from and still has family in the area.