Kelvin High School - Kelvin Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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hKs The formal opening was a “grand affair.” For two full evenings every depart¬ ment was in full operation simultaneously. In the class-rooms, the household arts, and in the shops students demonstrated all the equipment, while thousands of the public passed in long lines. And what pride we felt in our new K. T. H. S. those nights. Those two first years were times of planning and laying of foundations. The selection of the cherry and grey; the composing of the K-T-H-S yell; the first school journal, the “Kelvin Kalends,” in a Trial Number; an outdoor rink built and operated by the students; the first P.T. classes in which definite time was given for team games under “Jimmy” West; all kinds of experimenting in Shops courses and practice; the first operetta, “Sylvia”; the hockey team’s visits to Por¬ tage and Brandon to see the world—these were some of our student activities as we made early Kelvin history. Through it all, what fun we enjoyed! I suppose it was the spirit of the adventurer, of the explorer, of the experimenter that moved us. We could see oursekes first of a long line of successors in a Kelvin tradition—a tradition yet but one that must be worthily begun. To be vital every generation in ai Mpmust have some motivating spirit—ours was that of the explorer. Certainly, we had to work, too. Can you imagine a school under women and men like the following where work was not pursued and caught up to: Miss Brunsterman, Miss Macdougall, Miss Clark, Miss Coldwell, Miss Moore, Dr. Duncan (later superintendent), Mr. Little (now principal), Mr. Huggins, Mr. Loucks, Mr. S. A. Campbell, and the others? And what of the friendships? Space and time forbid the enumerating of even some—and to name some must mean to omit others. Some of our closest friend¬ ships today date from those lively days of the LaVerendrye and the Kelvin; some of the most dearly cherished memories are those recalled by the School Honor Roll, a great many of whose names are among our classmates—some engraved deeply and not lightly to be erased from mind. We worked together, played to¬ gether, indeed occasionally quarrelled together, and as a school we pulled to¬ gether—some grew up even to marry their schoolday sweethearts and so to con¬ tinue through all life together. Yes, indeed, it would be real fun to see a gatherin-in of all the “riginals” who entered Kelvin halls on that historic January day in 1912. Ewart H. Morgan, Kelvin, ’13. 16

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EDITORIALS hKs THE FIRST KELVIN YEAR BOOK I N 1912 and 1915 Kelvin students published the “Kelvin Kalends.” In 1925 the Kelvin Year Book came into existence. It has appeared every year since. The following is an extract from a letter written by the first Editor, Dr. Gerald Riddell, of the Department of History, Victoria College, University of Toronto: “The first edition was, I think, much better in its promise than its achieve¬ ment. You will remember how we had it printed by a man who had just gradu¬ ated from the school, the year previous to our effort. He had a small press in the kitchen of his home, and I think that most of the type was set by hand. We had contracted to have the paper out on, I think, the first of May, and as the last weeks of April came around, it became more and more apparent that the zealous goocL intentions of our printer could not offset the inadequacies of his equimaent J ever, we had said the first of May, and our public was waiting.W «d up production, partly by making all-too-evident sacrifices in the reading. On the last day of April the paper was all printed, but theTH H WEd not yet been assembled. That night in the dining room of his (the printer’s) house a solemn ritual was performed. The piles of pages were placed about the dining room table. The printer’s mother, two sisters and a small brother and myself walked around and around the table, taking a sheet off each pile, and thus assem¬ bling the paper in our circumambulations. One member of the family, a nipper too small to reach the table, was pressed into service carrying the assembled pages to the kitchen, where the printer was stapling on the covers. Thus, such as it was, the magazine appeared on the morning of the first of May.” SOME RECOLLECTIONS FROM “AN ORIGINAL” GLORY OF TODAY For Yesterday is but a Dream, And Tomorrow is only a Vision, But Today, well lived, makes Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness, And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope. —Poem from the Sanscrit. I T WAS all very exciting. For about three years the high school students of South Winnipeg had been temporarily housed in the LaVerendrye School, out on the prairies of Fort Rouge, after a year or two in the Alexandra School. During all that time we had anticipated expectantly the wonderful new school to be opened in Crescentwood, and latterly had watched it rise. At last at the New Year’s term opening in 1912 we packed all our possessions and moved across to the Kelvin Technical High School—the first Kelvinites. Well I recall our first sight-seeing tour. Three of us remained at four o’clock (this time voluntarily) and explored. We were like little Red Riding Hood, I suppose. What spacious halls it had!—and an auditorium with a real stage!—and the science room with gas and electricity!—and a gymnasium!—and the household arts room!—and what a variety of shops!—and what machinery for us! To us who had been educated on books alone (with some simple woodworking for manual training), it all seemed most extraordinary and impossible. Twenty-five years later do we still wonder or do we just take these things for granted? 15

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A TEACHER LOOKS BACK W E DID 1 not stop to think, on that morning twenty-five years ago, that some of us who brought our classes from the four corners of Winnipeg to Kelvin, might still be in our places to receive them on the twenty-fifth anni¬ versary of the opening of the school on Friday, the twelfth of March, 1937. Yet such is the case. Nine of that first year’s staff still remain in Kelvin. One of us was absent for a number of years doing excellent pioneer work in Junior High School organization. He returned to us some five years ago to direct the des¬ tiny of his old School. They were a bonny crowd of boys and girls, those youngsters of twenty-five years ago, of twenty years ago, of ten years ago, of last year and they are a bonny crowd of men and women today; men and women of whom any teacher would be more than proud to say, “I helped a little in forming their minds and characters”; men and women who have taken their places in our community, city and provincial life, and who are ready, willing and able to carry on successfully and courageously the work begun by their fathers and mothers; men and women who are giving excellent account of them¬ selves in home-building, in the professions, in the musical and artistic life of the city, and in the business world. But of Friday night’s reunion itself. The former students came in shoals and dozens and hundreds. Some, little changed, others squarer and rounder, still others minus their crowning glory, but all anxious to see whether teacher was smart enough to recognize them in their new guise. What an uproar! Much worse than the first few hectic months when we were trying to organize the school into a unified whole from the various units that had come to us from LaVerendrye, Alexandria, Greenway, Lord Roberts and many other schools. On all sides, greetings between old friends, eager questionings about absentees: Do you re¬ member? Can you tell me who I am? The shouts of joy when one could name a person not seen for twenty years. Where is Miss B . . . ? I want to tell her . . . Has Miss C . . . gone? She told me I could write, I want to thank her. And Mr. L . . . ? “There’s a man that taught true courtesy,” . . . and Miss McB ... or Miss Macd . . . Endless inquiries about past and present teachers, about old school chums lost sight of in the rush of life, about the younger generation, whether it was as good or bad as the older? Bewildering, but fun. “Come on, I want you to meet my wife or my husband,” as the case may be—“My children are learning “Frere Jacques” or “Latin Veils” or “Hi SCh.” “All that any one has to do to know what the passing years have done is to look out of the window and see the twinkling lights of the parked cars—five streets lined with them—they are no longer dad’s cars but our very own,” said the first student of Kelvin. How delighted these old boys and girls were with the efforts made by present- day pupils to give them a warm welcome home! They loved the mottoes, the decorations on the board and tried their best to rival them. The gym in cherry and grey revived old memories of happy hours spent there, the auditorium, of old time lit’s, the walks around the school, of famous exploits and deeds of derring-do.