The North End of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada welcomes the World to the
St. John's High School Centennial Reunion
Thursday, June 17th to Sunday, June 20th 2010
Counting from Sunday, June 20th 2010...
It has been days since the centennial reunion weekend!
St. John’s Alumni Association
Greetings to all alumni. Hard to believe that at this time last year we were in a count down to the kick off of what turned out to be a fabulous 100th reunion. This historical event in the life of our fine school was made possible through the support and participation of almost 2000 alumni and friends.
The post reunion feedback told us that there was a keen desire within the alumni community to continue the spirit that made the reunion such a valued time. To this end a small group of alumni have been meeting to set a tentative framework for a first ever St. John’s High School Alumni Association. As you know there are many successful high schools that are connected with productive committed school alumni. We hope to offer our school its own group of active alumni.
Plans are now in place to have a gathering of alumni to formally establish an alumni association. The draft mandate for this alumni group is outlined below.
Your support is being requested. You can assist by volunteering to sit on the alumni Board of Directors, volunteer for various projects, offer ideas to the alumni, assist in reconnecting with your school friends, be a helping hand for alumni sponsored events, etc. Whatever time and suggestions you can offer will be appreciated. Without tangible indications of support from alumni members, the association will be short lived.
St. John’s High School has officially endorsed the formation of a school alumni association.
Past and current students and staff are invited to the inaugural organizational meeting of the St. John's High School Alumni Association on April 12 at 7:00 p.m. in the meeting room of the new North End Salisbury House, 787 Leila Avenue.
We need to have an advance indication of the anticipated attendance in order to order refreshments and goodies. If you plan on attending (bring a friend) reply by April 5 to stj100alumni@gmail.com with your name and number coming. Forward this to any alumni you know that may be interested.
We really hope there is meaningful interest out there to form this group that will be committed to giving back in some way to the school that helped shape our futures.
Thank you,
Brian Burdy and Carole Kurdydyk
Reunion Co-Chairpersons
St. John’s Alumni Association By-Laws DRAFT
Written January 11, 2011
Name: St. John’s High School Alumni Association
Objectives
- To support and foster the mission and goals of St. John’s High School
- To foster on-going interaction among alumni of the school
- Manage the Centennial Alumni Wall
- To record, organize, maintain and preserve archival memorabilia and make accessible to alumni
- Keep people aware of the history of the school
- Manage funds of the alumni association
Membership
- Anyone who attended St. John’s (Tech) High School
- Faculty and staff
Officers
- Executive council made up of: President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, committee chairs and members at large
- Web master, membership, events
- Duties and powers to be determined: such as a liaison with parent council and school
Regular committees; duties and functions of committees
- To be decided
Meetings and programs; general timing of meetings
- To be decided
View our Photo Gallery
Click the link below or go to our Photos tab to view over 1700 photos from the event! The photogallery will open in a new window.
Click to view the photos from the reunion.
Videos by Alex Carr now online
In the mid-70’s, mini courses were given after exams. One of these was a course on film making taught by Alex Carr. Some of the videos contained scenes of very young teachers and also some who have since passed away. Many of them are quite funny.
Alex has recently completed uploading these 8 videos. To access the videos Click Here!!
Or go to www.youtube.com and enter mrgeezer1944 in the search field.
Greetings to all St. John's Alumni 2010 Attendees!
On behalf of the entire 2010 St. John's Centennial Reunion Steering Committee, we would like to extend our sincere thanks to all who attended the reunion festivities. It was our privilege to do our part to offer you a joyful and positive experience that you will not forget.
Approximately 2,000 alumni and guests took part in one or more of the many events that showcased this historic celebration.
The feedback received to date reinforces our impression that the 100th birthday was a special time we will all add to our many fond memories of St. John's High School.
We want to acknowledge the tremendous support we received from the school's staff and students. Without their commitment and hard work the school based events would not have been possible. We also owe a debt of gratitude to our alumni volunteers.
Thank you to the many individuals and organizations that willingly showed their support with in kind and financial sponsorships.
We hope you are enjoying the Memory Book and all the photos you may have taken.
General Announcements
If anyone has videos or pictures of the coffee house performances or the opening and closing ceremonies, please send a message to stj100alumni@gmail.com.
Photos by Lifetouch Canada--Saturday Night and Sunday, If you paid to have a photo taken at the gala or a class/year photo on Sunday, please note that your order will be in the mail at the beginning of September.
A cheque for $1,845.00 was given to the school library on behalf of the alumni of St. John’s who attended Russ Gourluck’s presentations and purchased copies of The Mosaic Village: An Illustrated History of Winnipeg’s North End.
Download or view a copy of the reunion edition of the Techonian (44MB): Click here!
Thanks to everyone who participated:
Opening Ceremony: Ron Romanowski
Coffee House: Airplane, MJ Amable, Valerie Amable, Troy Astrope, Bo Basiuk, Krista Cortez, Jesse Gates, Grade 8 Jazz Combo, the Brian Klowak Band, Sam Knacker, Dennis Mogg, Richard Panganiban, Roselle Panganiban, the Teacher Alumni Band (Curt Belton, Lorne Billinkoff, Larry Burdeny, Joe Hallis, Eric Hemmerling, Don Kraichy, Russ Kubara, Avril Mochoruk, Peter Price), Elaine Small, Vi Sanford, Romel Solitario, Vanessa Stewart, Joseph Wriggett, Yuri Korchynski.
Alumni Choir: Oksana Bondarchuk, Shirley (Omnitsky) Brown, Karen Dana, Natalia (Mojzner) Eyolfson, Barbara (Beddome) Green, Bev (Sandell) Greenberg, Randall Hay, Eric Hemmerling, Susan Israel, Donna Kormilo, Don Kraichy, Sondra Kraitberg, Carole Lowe, Beverly Mendelson, Linda (Poynting) Miller, Myroslava Pidhirnyj, Lionel Steiman, Daria (Monchak) Tittenberger, Lorna (Huff) Woroniak, Barbara (Wolk) Yallits, Sharon (Boonov) Yanofsky. Director - Richard Yaffe.
St. John’s Jazz Choir: MJ Amable, Valerie Amable, Troy Astrope, Lorielyn Cadiz, Krista Cortez, Jesse Gates, Hy Nguyen, Richard Panganiban, Roselle Panganiban, Dan Patriarca, Jason Robillon,
Gala: Burton Cummings, Monty Hall, Ken Kostick, Colleen Savage, St. John’s Jazz Choir
Closing Ceremony: Katharine Weber, Richard Panganiban, Harry Walsh, Q.C.
Message from Ron Romanowski
Thank you to Carole and Brian and all the rest of the organizing committee,
Maybe Tom Wolfe was wrong, and you can go home again! It sure felt like that to me throughout our glorious reunion weekend. One definition of poetry might be that it is an attempt at perfection. I think you reached that poetry at the reunion, so well planned it was, with what must have obviously been one of the altruistic forms of love. For me, having the honour of reading at Thursday's opening was a once in a lifetime experience that I will never forget. I've read all the moving comments on the website. But I don't know how to say thanks as well as many of the commentators, except with a poem:
When St. John’s Fever Clocked 100 Years
Night held the gala flag of reverie,
the men and women splendid, as vivid
as year book pictures, steady as the belief
that many years passing was an illusion,
time but a genial bookkeeper named Barney
who had a bit to drink and danced quite well.
As in youth everything was significant
but now that was the only thing to us,
taming the music of remembrance and loss
as pointedly as the laser light show
under magic’s shimmering charity trick
we easily loved ourselves to believe.
To those beliefs long after midnight
the buzz of our toasts ringing in our ears
in articulate loitering we stood,
that truth was in the dance of memory
who always loves to dance a little drunk.
by Ron Romanowski (Class of ’72)
Football
Saturday afternoon was a special time for players and fans of Tiger Football. Five Tigers were inducted in the Winnipeg High School Football Hall of Fame -
Bert Aikens, Lou Bernstein, Dr. Norm Hill, Kirk Kuppers and Rube Ludwig.
Inducted into the St. John's Hall of Fame were: Bert Aikens, Lou Bernstein, Simon Blazczak, Rob Boyko, Orlando Fagerstrom, Dr. Norm Hill, Kirk Kuppers, Rube Ludwig, Greg Osinchuk, Ian Schaefer, Tim Ryan, George Seidel, Mike Shylo, Don Shylo, Daryl Starkell, Konrad Tittler, Karl Wagner, Bruce Wierbicki, and Walter Zapisoki.
If anyone is interested in ordering an alumni football t-shirt, send a message to bmarks@wsd1.org.
An order for jerseys went in on June 22nd, and we expect them to be ready by the end of July. The team often orders at the end of August, and if any one wishes to piggy back on that order, contact Coach Marks. (It is important to get orders done in runs, otherwise costs become prohibitive.)
Archives:
The school’s archives collection has grown significantly with all the generous donations of many alumni. Thanks to all for leaving this legacy to future students of St. John’s.
An enormous amount of work was done prior to the Reunion in order to make this material available for viewing by alumni who attended the celebrations. Many who viewed the decade displays expressed the hope that these "stories" would be preserved, enlarged and shared with students and alumni in future years.
To continue to make this legacy available will require on-going effort to identify, organize, document, preserve, publicize and collect memorabilia. The collecting could include ongoing oral interviews on film; publishing e-news bulletins featuring additions to the collection, portraits of interesting alumni, blasts from the past, activities of alumni, deaths, etc.; mounting and maintaining in-building displays of archival materials; etc.
The alumni committee will send out periodic updates to everyone on the reunion database. If you are not interested in receiving these messages, let us know at stj100alumni@gmail.com. and your name will be removed from the list.
News
Premier Greg Selinger writes congratulations message to school.
Poet Ron Romanowski to recite at opening ceremony.
Katharine Weber, class of 1926, 101 years old, visits St. John's
Gord Mackintosh, MLA for St John's reads statement at Manitoba Legislature
Links
Click here to view our guestbook
Click here to view our attendees
Click here to view the reunion weekend schedule!