About 100 people came to the 50th anniversary open house of Langdale Elementary School on May 30 to take part in the half-century celebration featuring a student talent show and displays of photos and memorabilia from years gone by.
Guests enjoyed touring the school, seeing student works and hearing about all the current initiatives at the school that was first opened in 1962.
Kay Jaeck found herself reminiscing about the past. She became a special education teacher assistant in 1987 after volunteering as a parent for many years.
"Those five years teaching here were some of the happiest years of my life," she remembered.
Jaeck lived opposite the school for 15 years. She said she always enjoyed seeing the school children and helping out with whatever needs arose.
"They knew they could always count on me. If the kids got wet and needed their clothes dried they would just send them over to Mrs. Jaeck's and I'd put them in the dryer, or if someone came to school and forgot their lunch they would call Mrs. Jaeck and I'd come over with a lunch," she said. "This school has always been the centre-point for the whole community."
Current students showed how much they cared about their school by crafting a special mock birthday cake with candles of written wishes for Langdale Elementary. The candles read things like "I wish people would stop hitting the signs" and "I wish people would stop throwing things at the windows."
After guests perused the tables of memorabilia and had a tour of the school, they settled in the gymnasium to see some of the talent that's budding at Langdale.
Students sang, told jokes, recited Shakespeare, put on plays, danced and hoola-hooped during the talent show, which also featured a video of the entire school performing the Thriller dance during their study of the 1980s.
This year, students learned about every decade since the school's inception in an effort to make the upcoming milestone more significant and help the kids understand the changes that have taken place over the past 50 years.
Teachers focused on the different decades, made themes around them and worked those themes into their curriculum monthly. They also offered dress up days and dance classes to help get kids excited about their learning.
"When I arrived here last year to become the new principal I was struck by the great creativity and variety of learning experiences being given to students and the effort by staff to make learning interesting, fun and stimulating," said principal Bob McCubbin.
"This year that creativity and the learning that is fostered has been abundantly clear in all the work you see, which, of course, was created when we travelled through the decades to explore what things were like when children went to school all the way back in 1962, with about 40 students in grades 1 to 6. There was no kindergarten in those days."
The school now has about 90 students from kindergarten to Grade 7.
McCubbin thanked everyone for coming to the celebration and relayed his hope that Langdale Elementary stays in the community for many years to come.
"Every school is different. The reason is that each one is a reflection of the community it serves," McCubbin said. "Without students and teachers, though, a school is just a building. My hope is that Langdale never becomes just a building."
