What a Year!
From: Paidia 1971-1972
By: W.A. “Sandy” Heard, Headmaster
What can I say? The usual role of the headmaster at this auspicious occasion is to report on the year’s activities - tell you about the academic honors won, the athletic accomplishments of our students, the extra-curricular activities we took part in and plans for the year. It is also customary to thank the many individuals who have helped make the year the success it was; those who have donated time, money, gifts and counsel. I do not choose to do this this year, not because my gratitude on behalf of the school is lacking or not whole hearted, not because we haven’t won honors in many fields of endeavor, not because all our staff hasn’t given more than has been required of them, but because we have accomplished something else that is unique in schools. We have accomplished a family relationship. We have become members of this family by working terribly hard for something we all believe in and thus it would probably embarrass us all to pat each other on the back and publicly proclaim what good fellows we are.
I choose on the other hand to speak to the younger members of our family and perhaps what I say will have meaning for us all.
Graduating class - the 7 musketeers - where are you? Ah, in your proper place as always. You are our first you know and thus you have a special responsibility for in yours to come when people say to us, “What does your school do that is special?” we shall point to our graduates. We must be able to say “Our graduates have been taught to use all of their potential for the benefit of their fellow man. They were given a special kind of education at Strathcona-Tweedsmuir and you will find them in all kinds of different roles but you can be sure they will be using their talents for the good of the community that they are in. they will be changing the world, making it better and making the lives of people they come in contact with better for knowing them.”
All of us are constantly inundated with a picture of gloom and doom. Too much pollution. Too many births. Too many deaths. Too many people. Too much crime. Too many wars. This has had a tremendous impact on us all, but particularly on you, the young people. Some young people have met this picture by opting out, dropping out, escaping. But not you. You have accepted the challenge of your world, just as the parents and friends of this school accepted a challenge. They built a school. You are going to build a world.
Seeing how this school was built is a great lesson. Nobody carried a placard protesting the old schools. Nobody even threw a bomb - there were several close calls. There were no sit-ins or strikes and not even one student’s card was burned. Yet the old schools have given way to the new. This is because people legally got together and used their minds and their resources and made a change. Because we live in a country that believes in free enterprise, it could happen. It could happen without the government giving the money. It didn’t happen in one day, or one week or one year but with patience and perseverance, and hard work we are here today.
You can do the same. There are many things in the world that need changing, that need improving. You can do these things.
We will be watching you just as you were watched by little eyes and big ears all year. You set a fine example. We know we will continue to be proud of you.