HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2015-07-09, Page 19THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015. PAGE 19.
Graduation 2015
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decide which dreams we want to
achieve. Regardless of where we end
up after high school, we are all going
to be asked the exact same question,
“where in the world is
Londesborough?” I assume we will
all answer, “it’s a small village
between Blyth and Clinton”. Then
we will be asked, “where is Blyth and
Clinton?” To which we will respond,
“they are small towns about 20
minutes from Goderich”. They won’t
know where Goderich is. Our final
answer will be, “Londesborough is a
small village two and a half hours
west of Toronto”.
I have been told that high school
can be the best years of our lives, I
believe that comes with living in the
moment, cherishing the good times,
learning from the bad times and
remembering that this is the last time
we get to be a teenager. As a teen, we
will navigate our way through
relationships, socializing and our
studies. We will still need, on
occasion, a helping hand from an
adult. That’s the part we may find
tricky – asking for help when we
need it.
We will always have a family
member or a friend to whom we can
reach out. That reminds me of a
friend we all have that lightened
many of our days with a laugh.
As well as being nominated for
valedictorian, I have decided we
needed a “Tim Steinson Award”.
This award goes to a teacher at
Hullett that is felt to have endured
most of Tim’s clever jokes. There
were many close candidates for this
award, however ... The award goes to
... Mrs Gerber. Mrs. Gerber, please
come to accept this award. Thank
you Mrs. Gerber for being as patient
as possible when we had many
laughs in your class.
Tim, I believe I speak on behalf of
the class when I say thank you for
your witty sense of humor. You
definitely made the years at Hullett
more fun. We are very lucky to have
had many laughs with you. We will
miss you in class as we all know
how empty it felt when you were
asked to leave the room.
This is the last time that we will all
be sitting in one room together. We
can do our very best to keep in
contact, but realistically, life will get
busy and our lives will go in many
different directions. We will always
have one thing in common, a very
strong beginning. A quiet country
school that gave us the foundation
required to succeed. From here, we
will step boldly into the future.
Farewell, to the graduating class of
2015. Congratulations, and I wish
you all the best.
Seaforth valedictorians share classmate’s histories
By Sam MacGregor
and Natalie Campbell
Natalie:Sam and I are truly
honoured to be addressing the
Seaforth Public School graduating
class of 2015. We thank you
for choosing us to speak for you
tonight.
Sam:Dr. Seuss once said “You
have brains in your head. You have
feet in your shoes. You can steer
yourself in any direction you choose.
You’re on your own, and you know
what you know. And you are the
person who will decide where to go.”
We choose this quote for a reason.
Why you may ask? Because no
matter what happens in your life,
you are yourself.
Good evening, families, friends,
teachers and graduates. As you all
know, this will be the last time that
we are together with each other as a
class. We have waited for this
moment for many years and now
that it has come, we will reflect back
on our years together.
PRIMARY GRADES
Natalie:These past 10 years have
flown by so quickly, it seems like
only yesterday we were bugging
each other to see who could get to
the front of line. Kindergarten was a
scary time for us. It was a new
school, we had to make new friends
and it was our first time together.
Can you remember the suspense of
waiting your turn to be picked to be
the super kid of the day? The special
treatment of always being first in
line and getting to sit in the special
chair was truly amazing.
Kindergarten was a party compared
to the years to come. We made
cupcakes, had naps and spent most
of our time doing whatever we
wanted. Then Grade 1 came and
reality sunk in and we realized we
would be learning in a classroom for
the next eight years. As we formed
our friendships and our bonds grew,
we found out that school was not too
painful after all. After our field trip
to Pioneer Village, we realized the
importance of a good education.
Churning butter and washing clothes
was way harder than it seemed. After
that trip, I think we all gained a six-
pack. We learned to respect our
fellow students and built our courage
throughout our years. Our memories
will be treasured forever and we will
always remember all our primary
years with this class.
JUNIOR GRADES
Sam:As we continued into the
junior grades we learned to look out
for each other, support each other
and respect each person’s different
talents and strengths. Within our
class we have a diverse range of
people that make our class unique.
Some of us like sports, some like the
arts, some enjoy lunch and recess.
Grade 4 was a big jump. That huge
move from the primary playground
to the junior playground was a huge
change for us. Those Grade 6
students were intimidating.
That was also the year that we
went to Camp Kintail. Do you
remember the annoying camp song
we learned and sang all the way back
to school? In Grade 6 we went to
Camp Sylvan. We learned about
skunk cabbage and we quickly
learned to stay away from it, because
one fall in that and you would be
walking home.
INTERMEDIATE GRADES
Natalie:Going into our senior
years we were taught to be the role
models to the younger students and
show them the model citizens that
we are. Although sometimes we
were the ones who needed role
models. We won’t name any names,
but you know who you are. These
were the years that we tested our
teacher’s patience. Did you ever see
smoke coming out of Ms. Illman’s
ears? Even though we may not have
been the perfect students all the
time, our teachers still taught us to
be responsible and independent. We
were finally allowed to go out for
lunch without a note. We were also
given our on lockers and had the
privilege to temporarily own an
IPad.
Sam:Our teachers taught us more
than just math and language, they
taught us honesty and to always be
true to ourselves. They took us on a
trip to the Above the Falls challenge
course. This is where we began to
learn that anything is possible. Some
of the skills we learned at Above the
Falls were to work as a team and to
never let go of the rope. We gained
trust in our classmates and pushed
ourselves to our limits. Finally, in
Grade 8, we thought we knew it all
and had it all under control... or do
we?
Natalie:I think we would all
agree that one of the highlights from
our entire school journey was Camp
Celtic. It was an amazing experience
to go there because of all the
memories we made. The councillors
made us laugh every moment of the
trip and the things we did made us
laugh even harder. Waking up at 6:45
a.m. in the freezing cold was not my
favourite part, but it was all worth it.
The Celtic Survival game was a
definitely a highlight of the trip. I’m
sure we all probably fell at least once
and we have the scars and scrapes to
prove it.
Sam:In addition, Camp Celtic
forced us to face our fears and try
new things. The ropes course
definitely challenged us. To
complete the course we all had to put
our brains together and use
teamwork to finish each challenge.
There were times when we lost a few
people and there were some close
calls, but in the end there were no
broken bones, just some sore, tired
kids. This quote from Arnold
Schwarzenegger reminded me of our
trip to Camp Celtic: “You can’t
climb the ladder of success with
your hands in your pockets.”
Natalie:I am confident and I’m
sure that everyone else here is, to say
that we are ready and prepared to
take on high school – to begin a
whole new chapter in our lives. Even
though we are moving on, and may
not all be together, the bond we have
created will remain forever in our
minds.
A special thanks goes out to all the
staff including the custodians, the
secretary, the EAs, the teachers and
the principals who have made an
impact in our lives throughout the
last 10 years. They have taught us so
much and prepared us for this next
stepping stone in our lives.
It took us a while to find out who
we are and as we move forward we
are still discovering and planning
our futures, but this elementary
school journey was a pretty good
start.
Now it is time to bid you farewell
and wish you the best, or as they say
in Paris, “Au revoir!”
Caldwell nominates Gerber
for Tim Steinson award
By Casey VanDorp
It’s a boy! It’s a boy! It’s a boy!
another boy …. and another boy...
and ...It’s a girl! Oh, another boy!
That was the year 2001...and what
a year it was! So many parents were
expecting a child. For some it was
their first, for others it was it was
their second, third or fourth child,
and a few times this was the fifth,
sixth or even a seventh child!
A few years later, when these
children were about five years old,
their parents had to make the
decision about which school their
precious little darlings would go to.
These parents chose Huron
Christian School. They wanted their
children to go to a Christian school
so that what was being taught at
home and at church was also taught
at school. So that is what brought all
of us here today.
Dear parents, staff, grandparents,
and students, welcome on the walk
through history down memory lane
of our competitive, loud, caring
class of 2015.
Ah, our first historic destination,
Kindergarten! The paradise of
school. Our tour guide, Mrs. Soer,
gave us the map that would help us
along the way. She was ready to
tackle 14 boys and six girls! But
before we could really start our
journey, we need some ground rules.
Mrs. Soer had to constantly tell us
“Girls! Don’t touch each other!”
“Boys! Keep your hands to
yourself!”
Mrs. Soer was like a second
mother to us. She always came
around and checked our lunches to
make sure we all had enough to eat
and on one occasion she even had to
buy new clothes for us. Long story
short: We made a super big mudslide
on the hill! The boys all had a great
time but couldn’t understand why
the teachers disapproved of having
to scrape mud out of our ears and
from between our toes.
At the end of the year, Mrs. Soer
was exhausted from having to teach
so many boys, so she handed us over
to another tour guide for further
training.
When the class met for the start of
our next journey through history,
Ms. Bechtel was overjoyed to begin
step one. Step one included the
basics, such as how to read and
write. Ms. Bechtel also took the
class on a couple detours to ensure
we would be ready for anything.
As you all probably know, our
Grade 1 tour guide is an excellent
singer. But in a class with this many
boys, it doesn’t take much for the
harmonious sound to get worn
down. In these events, Ms. Bechtel
taught us an alternate method of
communicating with sign language!
Even though our class was filled
with eager learners, we often got
caught in the signs and none of us
knew what she was trying to say. We
would always end up in some sort of
trouble, but to this day, I couldn’t
really tell you what for.
We little journeyers also needed to
learn some bathroom rules! Some of
these included keeping the urinal to
yourself and to really listen when the
tour guide called for a bathroom
break! One unlucky traveller missed
the cue and created quite the mess, if
you know what I mean.
We finally finished at our second
destination down the historic
Memory Lane and we were all ready
to start our next one! Our next tour
was guided by Mrs.Van Wyk. The
journeyers were finally ready to
settle in and take on the challenges
that came with the expeditions. One
of these expeditions included
making inventions. The class was
very excited about this experiment,
but we all got a bit sidetracked by
the whole idea, so let’s just say we
came up with some pretty odd and
different inventions.
One of the many challenges we
would encounter on our course arose
in Grade 3. Five new members
joined the tour through history! Now
we had 16 boys and seven girls. We
all had to relearn how to get along
and work together to complete the
task ahead of us.
Most of the newbies settled in
quickly and adapted to the rules of
being on tour. Reece, however,
seemed to have missed the memo
and decided that it was okay to walk
around without shoes on. Besides
that, he began to teach us his own
little cooking skills.
Liam caught on quickly and
joined in on slapping pizzas around
and creating the super bagel. I really
think that the contents of an entire
fridge were on that bagel! And as
you may guess, the bagel tasted
horrible! Maybe it was the stench of
the guinea pigs, or maybe it was just
VanDorp takes trip down
memory lane as valedictorian
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