Person to Know: Lee Harkin Tran

At the ripe young age of thirteen, Needham’s youth are legally allowed to join Facebook. And, the first move that many new-Facebookers make (other than friending their grandma), is to request to join the Needham Facebook group. For as long as many of us have been on Facebook, and other forms of social media, the Needham Facebook group has been one of our largest online connections to the town community, and the culture of the group has been part of the culture of the town. In the hallowed halls of Needham High school, students can be overheard discussing the latest Facebook group drama, citing a flyer they saw for an upcoming event, or speaking nostalgically of Facebook events of the past.

Given the universality of the Needham Facebook Group experience™ for NHS students, we at the Hilltopper have decided to interview the unsung hero of Needham High School, Needham’s own Lee Harkin Tran.

Does that name sound familiar? Lee Harking Tran was the Needham Facebook Group’s sole admin and moderator for over a decade after she founded it back in 2008. You may see her calming down debates, posting important reminders, or (if you’re one of those argumentative facebookers) maybe even in your DM’s giving you a warning.

Lee’s family has been in Needham for several generations, going all the way back to the 1800s. She started the group in 2008, which was when her son was still at Needham High School. She was often frustrated at how easy it was to miss town events, be it the High School’s a capella show or town elections, without a centralized source of information. She also recognized that other families were having the same issue as she was with staying on top of everything, and that there was no good resource for people to ask others for recommendations or search for things within the town.

So, Lee created the Needham Facebook group. It grew very slowly from when she first created it, because, according to Lee, in 2008, it was mostly just young people on Facebook. However, that changed from 2013-2015 as more and more adults moved onto the social media platform, creating the Facebook group’s largest growth, which occurred 4-5 years after its creation in 2012-2013.

Over the years, as more and more people have joined and brought the Facebook group up to the 14.5K members presently in it (who Lee says are a mix of current residents, past residents, prospective residents, and people from surrounding towns), the policies around appropriate Facebook group behavior have had to become more and more complex. As summarized for us by Lee, she generally takes things situation by situation, deleting comments and even posts that go against the group’s guidelines. She then reaches out to the individual, and mutes them within the group for 12 hours to 1 month, but usually 24 hours. At the first offense, you get a warning, and then, depending on the severity of either your second or third offense, you can be blocked from the group. A common topic resulting in members getting warned are national elections - it's group policy that only state and town elections can be discussed in the group (don’t worry, Needham has other groups for political debate, keep reading). And, just to make this abundantly clear, Lee moderating the group is not a violation of your First Amendment right to freedom of speech: Facebook is a private website, and this is a private group.

Lee spends an hour or so a day reading through posts, comments, and DM’s and, in her words, “making sure the adults act like adults.” On the whole, though, Lee says she enjoys moderating the group. As something she’s started from the ground up, it's satisfying for her when new people move into town and have an easy place to find a lot of resources, and possibly also new friends. Lee, outside of her work on the Facebook group, is a very successful realtor. From this real estate perspective, she thinks the group is very helpful in forming connections and property information for new or prospective Needhamites. Lee also enjoys being able to reconnect with her past classmates and fellow Needhamites, as the group allows Needhamites of all generations to reconnect.

Moderation of the Facebook group, does, however, have its cons. Often, Lee has to deal with dramatic situations, something unavoidable in such a public group. To keep peace and order in the group, and keep the group PG, Lee often has to make controversial decisions, be it taking down a post, making the decision to not allow discussion of national politics, or responding to a comment section. She has also had to mute, and one time, kick out, her own friends.

As the Needham Facebook page has grown, both in users and in posts, off-shoot pages have become necessary. Lee has created the NHS Alumni group, which has 3.6 thousand members, the Route 128 yard sale group, for selling items, and a separate page for each public school, as well as helping to create “It’s Time for Coffee,” a page for political conversations. Similar to “It’s Time for Coffee,” “The Memory Hole,” was created as a page for political conversations, though Lee did not create it. Who knew that there was one woman behind almost all of these important town discussion forums? We’re still in awe of her.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the Facebook group took the spotlight in the community, as it became one of the main platforms for town discussion, information, and worries. Members of Needham were (fairly) afraid and nervous about what was going on, and, in Lee’s words “the Facebook group blew up”. She had to spend more and more hours moderating the group, calming people down, and attempting to maintain some standard of discussion. At this time, people were taking out their fear and anxiety on each other, resulting in discussions that Lee termed “just horrendous”. She cites these early days of the pandemic as the most difficult days in her time as admin, saying she was saddened to see how current Needham residents were treating each other. In order to deal with all of this, Lee decided to bring on new moderators. While Lee remains the only Admin, she is now joined by moderators Gail Lustig, John Bulian, and Justin McCullen. These moderators had, throughout the years, been good and positive members in both the Facebook group and the town, and Lee messaged them and asked them to be moderators. And they seem to have been doing a great job, as much of the initial drama has died out to make way for more civil and informative discussion.

The most important question you’ve all been waiting for: does the position as facebook admin bring glory, fame, and riches? The answer is both yes and no. Glory? Definitely. Fame? Somewhat. Riches? Not at all. Lee tells us that she is occasionally recognized around town, especially in the grocery store, where people often ask her about her work on the Facebook group. If you are not in the Needham Facebook group, we highly recommend joining. Where else can you find coyote sightings, discussions of town politics, reminders for School Committee meetings (watch Aidan Michelow!), and just the right amount of comedic comments. Lee also loves it when high school students apply to join, because, as she puts it, “High school students have really good opinions to share, and that we can learn a lot from them.” With that wonderful compliment in mind, remember to thank Lee if you spot her at Suds.