 From left are Joyce Agnew (nee Beaton), Gwen Gogolinski (nee Vasselin), Doreen Sailer (nee Jenkins who attended school with the others until Grade 11), Marlene Pittman (nee Shatz) Gordon Blanchard and Margaret Blanchard (nee Rapson). |
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While Grade 12’s all over the province were celebrating graduation ceremonies, a group of alumni were at Bow Island’s Bow Thai restaurant, reminiscing about their ceremony, held 60 years ago.
Eight people were in the Grade 12 class at what was then called Bow Island High School, an old brick building that has long disappeared.
Most of the class of ‘49 took two years to complete Grade 12 as certain classes were offered one year then the follow-up classes were offered the next year. The only way around that was to take several courses via correspondence.
Another anomaly about the class of ‘49 is they were the only group of students who all had to be bused into town.
Five of those eight graduating class members gathered last week, 60 years after graduation, to mark the passing of a very special day together. They shared a meal then went to Gordon Blanchard’s home, who 60 years ago was the class valedictorian, to share memories and an afternoon of sunshine and laughter with old friends.
The ceremony marking the Class of ‘49’s graduation took place on May 26, 1949 in the Pearl Theatre.
“It’s the Bow Theatre now,” Blanchard said.
But, at the time, it was a real theatre, another added.
“And if you were seated in the back row the policeman - what was his name? Earnest Coombs? He would come up behind you and breathe down your neck, checking to see what you were doing,” she said.
“You must have been a bad girl,” a friends teased.
“I most certainly was not,” she said, eyes twinkling.
Of the eight who graduated, Joyce Agnew (nee Beaton), Gwen Gogolinski (nee Vasselin), Doreen Sailer (nee Jenkins), Marlene Pittman (nee Shotz), Margaret Blanchard (nee Rapson) and Gordon Blanchard were able to attend the reunion.
All five went into education just as they said they would in the biographies read at their graduation 60 years ago.
All eight are shown in their graduation picture, fresh-faced and ready to take on the world, the ladies in white gowns, as was the custom of the time. All of them started out in little country schools and all are thankful to the principal of the time, DC Pickard, who they said got them through Grade 12.
In the ceremony in 1949, Mr. Mowat, the superintendent of the Foremost School Division, gave an address with a message outlining the responsibilities of youth. The director of the Alberta Wheat Pool, AT Baker, told the youth not to expect that the business world owed them a livng and that all graduates must work to succeed. He added each grad owed the world hard work.
Following graduation, there was a dance at the Community Hall which ended at midnight.
This year’s celebration ended a little earlier than midnight, but it was likely just as sweet and memorable as the one they shared 60 years ago.
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