Brentwood College School - Brentonian Yearbook (Mill Bay, British Columbia Canada)

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VALEDICTORIAN ' S SPEECH Bruce A. McKinnon — Awards Day — June 20, 1975 Honoured Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Head- master, Staff and Fellow Graduates: May I start by saying what a pleasure it is for me to have the honour of being Valedictorian. It is trivial that I am terrified, but the honour lies in the fact that I am the first ever to be chosen here at Brentwood. For that honour I thank you, Graduates of 75. For me, this day is the end of 5 of the most profitable and enjoyable years of my life. Several other of you Graduates in this room now have shared with me the victories and defeats of those 5 years and I am sure all of you who have shared this year with me feel much the way I do now — that it is fantastic to get out of school after so long, but in leaving Brentwood, you are able to look back and see what good this school has done for you. Improvement and progress have always been major concerns of the school over the last years. I speak of this with reference to all aspects of school activity. Academics, Athletics, Fine Arts and especially the little things like the food have improved with time. The evidence is before you on your tables. While on the subject of improvement and progress, certainly THE most significant and enjoyable change Brentwood has experienced has been the injection of females into the College blood stream. Their smiling beauty, coupled with great encouragement, enthusiasm and goodliness make them all totally enjoyable (for obvious reasons!!). And so I would like to thank Miss Holden and Mrs. Wichlinski and your often uncontrollable ladies for making Brentwood that much more enjoyable for us boys, (as Shelley wrote — Tameless and swift and proud ) I think that the students here at Brentwood are a fortunate lot because we have a group of ladies and gentlemen who ' s job it is to tame us and mould us into learned individuals. For them the job is difficult requiring great strength and determination (indeed the student too must endure the hardships of their classes) but they do a tremendous job and I would like to thank them immensely — I speak, of course, of the staff. What does the future hold for todays Grade 8 ' s? I can only hope they will have as much fun as I have had and also when they leave Brentwood they leave as bolder, more mature individuals. Brentwood must grow and continue to grow, and seeds are germinating now in the junior grades which I am sure will blossom into fine young people. In closing, I would like to thank you, Mr. Headmaster, Mr. Bunch and Staff, so very much for all you have done, as we, your Graduates of 75 bid you farewell. B.A. McKinnon

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D.D. Mackenzie, M.A. F.R.S.A. Ladies and Gentlemen: May I first welcome such a large group of parents and friends of the school to another presentation of awards afternoon. It is so nice to see so many enthusiastic people and have them come to join us for this occasion. — anticipatory fathers and expectant mothers. The first thing I suppose I should do is to make some comment about this changed school, changed not only in numbers but in content. We are this year 245 boys and 60 girls, a vast difference from what we were some 3 or 4 years ago. This development, I may say, was strongly urged by the Downey Committee who visited this school some eight years ago and who recommended that we increase our numbers to between 300 and 350. Next September we shall be precisely half way between these two with 325 and this, for the foreseeable future, will be our maximum. In order to accommodate more students we would have to build more classrooms, more residences, more laboratories, more playing fields, and this, I feel, would be too big a job. Besides which, the present figure still enables us all to know each student personally, the hallmark of our profession here at Brentwood. In academics I should report that Jerry Klima won the British Columbia High School Science Fair Competition and was sent then to Toronto where he finished second in the National Competition. In the University of Victoria Symposium this year we had three observers chosen from five entries so you see our academics remain strong. It is early enogh yet to say to what universities our students have been admitted but we have had acceptances from McGill, from Toronto as well as from British Columbia and Alberta universities. I am somewhat concerned that on our academic reports we used to note a student ' s height and weight at the beginning and end of each term. One lad started the term with a height of 4 ' 9 and finished, according to the report, at 4 ' 8 . The Housemaster, concerned about this, finally commented He is settling in nicely. We have not included such details in our reports since. In Fine Arts we have been most active. The Mikado was produced with some great success just before Christmas. The Choir and Band have both been very busy with festivals and concerts and each, I may say, extremely successful. The students and staff put on a fine concert at the end of the Easter Term while the Dramatic Society produced Everyman last Wednesday night. In Sports our Rowing Eight have once again been quite outstanding winning the Independent Schools and Western Canadian titles. They went to St. Catherine ' s where they finished fourth but against schools, all of whom used Grade 13 students, some of 21 and 22, and they broke the previous record. They qualified last week to go to the Canadian Youth Championships in Montreal and I think their accomplishments will be worth watching. The girls too have achieved great things in this sport and the Women ' s Singles were won by Barbara Sutherland while Valerie Knowles joined her in winning the Doubles. In addition, we have participated in girls and mixed field hockey, ice hockey, rugby and a most tremendous variety of other sports. We used to have a very enthusiastic Jewish mother who came to all the rugby games until half way through last season. Noticing her absence for three games all in a row I phoned her and asked why it was she had not been recently. She confided to me that she just realized what the ball was made of. In our academic staff only Miss Ainslie leaves the Library. All others return for which I am most grateful. I was a little under the weather at Christmas and after. While in hospital the Board of Governors met and the Secretary sent me a telegram which read The Board have met and passed a motion for your speedy recovery — by a vote of 13 to 12. The staff were rather more kind than that, adjusted beautifully to the situation and the school carried on better than ever. I am most grateful indeed to each and every one. Likewise goes my gratitude to the non-academic staff all of whom have remained most co-operative and cheerful. We are indeed lucky at this school with those who work here. And for the future, as I hinted at the beginning, we will get no bigger, at least not for the foreseeable future. Applications rush in and we are full at almost every level. At the moment things look very healthy. To the Graduating Class the message has already been given and in most articulate style by Mr. Phillips. All I can say to you now is good luck. It has been very nice having you here. D.D. Mackenzie