Altona Collegiate - Green and Gold Yearbook (Altona, Manitoba Canada)

Page 71 text:

IRarcf. rffaxeteUct By John Brandane MAC CONNACHIE MAC CALLUM . MAC COLL .. MR. MAC INTOSH MRS. MACLEAN . SHERIFF . CLERK . HOWARD THIESEN . RICK JANZEN . VICTOR TOEWS . RUDI REIMER PATRICIA BECKERT . RONALD FRIESEN SHELDON FRIESEN This year the cast for the Festival drama was chosen primarily from grade nine. Under the direction of Mr. Zacharias the Altona performers again placed first in their class, thereby winning the Dr. Wm. Loewen trophy. Congratulations! 69

Page 70 text:

‘Do look as if 1 came e in 1810? Would I feel s way toward you if 1

Page 72 text:

fixadcoztuM ' 64 Back row: Nick Driedger, Ken Braun, Dr. G. Johnson. Gerald Gerbrandt, Barry Braun. Front row: Carolyn Funk, Marlene Schroeder, Marjorie Janzen. Lois Hildebrand. Missing from picture Eric Friesen. VALEDICTORY Tonight is a highpoint in our lives. It can only come once at this level. Tonight represents at least twelve years of work and study, and the diplomas we get will always be treasured. We are also very happy tonight in that we represent the Altona Collegiate as the twenty-fifth graduating class. Our lives, particularly our academic lives, can be compared to a range of mountains. When we started school at the age of five or six, the grades stretched before us, high and forbidding, like a mountain range. We started climbing though, slowly but surely. We didn’t climb those formidable mountains by ourselves. We were all helped every inch of the way. We could never have made it by ourselves. Possibly the first people we think of in this regard are our teachers. Without them, we just wouldn’t be here tonight. They have been trained and have given of their lives to help us. They have worked just as hard as we, trying to help us understand our work so we could keep going. All too frequently we tend to forget how much the teachers really helped us during our school years. Other groups which have helped us, although in¬ directly, are the school boards. They ran the schools successfully and always made sure we had enough equipment and supplies in order to work satisfactorily. They, too, deserve a lot of credit for helping us climb those mountains, year after year. Those, though, who have never changed, and yet helped us considerably, are our parents. They helped us in studies when we just couldn’t understand the work. They reminded us of our homework when we forgot. They were always climbing with us, helping sometimes, and tactfully letting us do it ourselves at other times. They worried and hoped with us during exams and school activities in which we were a part. If we did poorly, they tried to reassure us and to help us do better later on. If we did well, their joy was as boundless as ours. They had a long, hard job, helping us climb those mountains. To all those people who have helped us through these years, a mere ‘thank-you’ is not sufficient. We hope they will all realize that in our hearts we are extremely grateful. Now that we have finished climbing this particular mountain range, we look back and see, far in the back¬ ground, a dim, little mountain, which at first was the big formidable mountain of Grade one. At that time we expected to see the world at our feet when we reached Grade twelve. Whatever we wanted would be handed to us on a silver platter. If this was our expectation, we have been greatly surprised. All we see now are more mountains, everyone leading a different way, to a different field of work. Each of us has had to choose our life’s work and again begin to climb mountains. After every moun¬ tain comes another and yet another. Years from now, after we have climbed more mountains, we will look ahead and see still more mountains. With the grace of God, which has been with us all these years, we will climb those mountains too. Some day we will look behind us and see, far in the background, a dimly lit, little mountain, Grade twelve, the mountain upon which we now stand. 70