The St. Mary’s Grade 9 class of 1973. Back row (from left): Jim Schultenkamper, Dave Kitteringham, Paul Harris, Don Almond, Sid Deibert, Dwayne Balfour, Frank Spenrath. Front row (from left): Mr. Daryl Weeres (Principal), Mr. Evan Krawchuk (Vice Principal), Sheila Richards (Mcilwrick), Cynthia Harty (Noyes), Michelle McAuliffe (Rabick), Robert Lacoursiere, Simon Deibert, Rita Behm. Jeannette Benoit-Leipert Meridian Source
What started as a coffee date between old friends turned into a unique reunion for a group of ex St. Mary’s School students and two of their teachers.
A little over 50 years since they celebrated their Grade 9 grad, students of the class of 1973 gathered at their old stompin’ grounds to reconnect.
The reunion was held on Sept. 8 and began with a tour from the current principal at St. Mary’s School, Sue Grams.
“I just think it’s so great they are getting together after 50 years!” said Grams prior to hosting the tour.
St. Mary’s staff and students decorated the gym and baked cookies for the occasion.
Two of the reunion coordinators, Sid Deibert and Paul Harris, said they were delighted by the reception they received when they went to the school to ask if they could meet up there for the event.
“The principal that’s there now, she’s amazing. She gives us this grand tour and she’s so excited. She knocks on the classroom door because we were just talking about Mr. Krawchuk’s science class … of course the teacher is wondering ‘what is this?’ The principal is here with two old guys. So she says to the whole class, ‘Guess what? These guys went to this school 50 years ago,” said Harris.
“I said ‘yeah, back when the dinosaurs roamed!’ And then Sid said something really cool that we would never say when we were there like ‘it’s so important for you guys to listen to your teachers because of the great education we got when we went to this school’ and the principal really thanked us, especially Sid. He got a gold star from the principal, an A plus,” Harris chuckled.
The idea came to them when Deibert drove down from Alliance, Atla. for a visit last fall. Four members of the Grade 9 class got together for coffee and reminisced about old times.
“I said ‘this is neat,’ like we sat around for a couple of hours and just told all kinds of stories … So I said ‘you know, next year is going to be 50 years since we graduated, why don’t we set up a reunion.’ And so that’s what started it,” said Deibert.
“We were so close. Ninety-eight per cent of us went to school from Grade 1 to Grade 9 together. So we’re a small group that knew each other so well.”
Although Deibert had never used social media before, he figured it was the best way to find his classmates and it proved to be quite helpful.
“The response we got from everyone is ‘it will sure be interesting, and we’re really looking forward to this’, and that was a positive for me because when I first tried to get all of this going I wasn’t on any social media, Facebook or anything. So I signed up to all them and tried to figure them all out,” said Deibert.
While planning the event, he tried to keep the element of surprise intact.
“I never mentioned names because I wanted them to be surprised though, but I told them we did get two teachers and I mentioned them because I figured, they’ll for sure want to come,” he said.
The two teachers who made it to the reunion were Daryl Weeres and Evan Krawchuk.
Weeres, who travelled a few hours to attend the event, was the principal of St. Mary’s in 1973.
“He lives in Red Deer and he booked a hotel room. He’s coming. And Mr. Krawchuck still teaches, he’s still on their sub list. And they’re kind of the driving attraction too, because everyone is asking who’s going to be there,” said Deibert.
Sadly, not everyone could make it. Harris said some of their teachers and classmates had passed away, and others weren’t able to travel.
One of Deibert’s and Harris’ favourite teachers, Leo Feist, is unfortunately among those who have passed away, but they have fond memories of him as their Grade 9 homeroom teacher.
“He was very unique for both Sid and I because, first of all, you rarely got a man teacher. And then second of all, he did a whole bunch of other things. He did farming, he did construction, he had this history of all these professions,” said Harris.
“So he taught us that you don’t have to be one thing. You can try this out, try that out, go take this training, do that. And we’re thinking really? I thought you had to pick one. So it was really cool.”
When asked how the 50-year reunion went, Deibert said he was very pleased with the turnout, and he ‘couldn’t ask for a better time’.
“Everyone is asking when the next one is,” he said.
