By Lucinda Chodan
Special to Westlock News
WESTLOCK – We came. We saw. We remembered.
I was one of about 73 graduates of R.F. Staples Secondary School who gathered in Westlock to celebrate our 50th high school reunion Aug. 25-26.
Those of us who were there revelled in memories, recalled long-ago escapades and enjoyed reconnecting with people who, in some cases, we had not seen for half a century — since May 4, 1973, when we attended ceremonies at the high school gym and danced for hours at the Memorial Hall.
Members of the Class of ’73 came from across Canada to take part. Lettie Aarnoudse Maloney, chair of the committee that organized the reunion, travelled from her home in Mahone Bay, N.S. Don Truckey, class historian at the original grad ceremonies, came from the Haliburton Highlands north of Toronto. I flew in from Montreal.
Many others made the trip from B.C., Saskatchewan and other centres in Alberta as well as the Westlock area.
We were joined by teachers Fern Gagnon, who taught at Westlock Junior High, and Werner and Alice Frose, mainstays of the school system at Fawcett for many years. Elsie Wishloff, who also taught at Westlock Junior High, was unable to attend but sent a witty e-mail that elicited laughter from attendees, especially those who grew up in Southview.
The attendance was remarkably high, given the 50 years that have passed since that cool night in May 1973 when our grad ceremonies were held. That evening, it was 60 pre-Celsius degrees (that is 15 current degrees), Harvey Doherty was mayor of Westlock and our phone numbers started with “342” not “349.”
According to an article in the Westlock News on May 2, 1973, there were 124 graduands in the class and 73 attended the 50th reunion.
“We were extremely pleased at the turnout,” chair Lettie Maloney said. “When we started on this journey (to organize the reunion) during COVID, never in my wildest dreams did I think so many people would come.”
Maloney credited the organizing committee — Julie Balascak, Kim Boyd, Doug Cross, Dale Davis, Loreen Foster (nee Ohrn), Meleena Fulton (nee Rains), Brent Gray, Patricia Hengel (nee Wiese), Dale Kaliel, Valerie St. Arnaud (nee Adkins), Barb Smerychynski (nee Senko), Ken Stasiuk, Georgina Vickers (nee Masson) and me — with the success of the event, including tracking down our former classmates.
We managed to find all but 14 members of our graduating class.
“It was so heartwarming to see all those familiar faces and to see how happy everyone was to be there,” Maloney told me.
The Saturday banquet began with greetings from mayor Ralph Leriger. Then we played trivia games, including one that challenged us to recall now-obsolete pastimes from our youth. Jacks, Red Rover and Anti-I-Over were among the most frequent guesses.
We also took time to remember 30 classmates who are no longer with us. Their names were read aloud while the song I Will Remember You by Sarah McLachlan played. Attendees were completely silent during the In Memoriam segment, as the grad photos and names of the deceased appeared on a screen in the banquet room.
I shared emcee duties with Meleena Rains Fulton. In my speech, I repeated what so many of us had been saying during the weekend — that there must have been something special about the school friendships we shared in Clyde, Dapp, Fawcett, Flatbush, Jarvie, Linaria, Rochester, Tawatinaw, Vimy and Westlock to draw so many classmates to our reunion.
The formal ceremonies ended when I read aloud the e-mail sent by former teacher Elsie Wishloff, who recently moved to Sherwood Park after living in Westlock for 65 years.
Her e-mail ended this way.
“Congratulations on 50 years of post-high school achievements,” she wrote. “I am happy to report to you that getting to 92 years of age is just around the corner. Have fun getting there!”
Many classmates said they didn’t want to wait that long to get together again. We are hoping that someone will step forward to organize a 55-year reunion in 2028.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Lucinda Chodan, known as Cindy in high school, is former senior vice-president of the news division of Postmedia Network Inc., a media company that includes more than 130 news outlets across Canada, including the Edmonton Journal. She is the former editor in chief of the Journal, the Victoria Times Colonist and the Montreal Gazette.
