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Wednesday, April 9, 2014
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A HIGH SCHOOL WORTH
CELEBRATING
Vic High students and alumni honour iconic school Story by Daniel Palmer Keith McCallion retrieves a master key from his pocket, his breath quick from the four-storey climb towards Victoria High’s attic. Beyond the door, a century of graffitied graduate names cover plywood and brick walls once used as a firing range for student cadets. “The rite of passage is the grads get to come up here and sign their names,” says McCallion, a former Vic High principal and enthusiastic board member of its alumni association. “You can actually go and pick out bullets from the walls down at the far end of the room.” Vic High’s 138-year history makes it the oldest public high school west of Winnipeg and north of San Francisco, according to the school’s archivists. Its expansive Fernwood building wasn’t completed until April 1914 after its previous three schools burned down,
the multi-tonne steel support beams and tens of thousands of bricks exhaustively transported by horses, carts and pioneering builders. Vic High’s students, teachers and thousands of alumni will officially celebrate the centennial of their enduring building next month, May 16 to 19. The school’s centennial in 1976 attracted more than 10,000 people, while its 125th anniversary brought nearly 3,000 alumni back through the school halls, says Vic High principal Randi Falls. “I think we honour their memory, and as a result, they honour us,” says Falls, who began her teaching career at the school in 1986 and returned four years ago to take the helm. “I tease the kids sometimes, I talk about the spirits. … There’s just something about the building. People come back and
it looks exactly the same.” PLEASE SEE: Vic High celebrates, Page A5
Above: The 1901 Vic High women’s field hockey team poses with their newly won B.C. Championship trophies and banners. Left: An unknown Vic High student crosses the finish line during a sunny day in 1948. Vic High’s students, teachers and thousands of alumni will officially celebrate the centennial of their current building next month, May 16 to 19. Courtesy Vic High Archives
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