Albert Lacombe graduates will dust off their yearbooks this week as their alma mater celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Albert Lacombe Elementary opened its doors 50 years ago this month in 1964. To celebrate, the school is inviting all current and former staff and students to a free party.
Students have spent the last week interviewing about 20 former teachers and students at the school and plan to post the results on Facebook, said principal Joan Tod.
"We have a big party planned on the evening of Nov. 21," she continues.
Expect hula-hoop dances by the kindergarten classes, song-and-dance numbers done to the top hits of 1964, classic games such as jacks and marbles, hayrides and an "Albert's Diner" in the gym.
The school's anniversary page on Facebook hosts scores of pictures from the school's history as well as a congratulatory message from hockey stars and former students Jarome Iginla and Nick Holden.
Looking back
Named after the renowned missionary Albert Lacombe, Albert Lacombe School opened in November 1964 under principal Stan Dalzell and vice-principal Marie Poburan (the namesake of école Marie Poburan).
"Nestled in a valley to protect it from harsh winter winds, this school will have eight classrooms going up to Grade 6, a library, a general purpose room and a gymnasium," the Gazette reported in September 1964. The many trees around it gave it the look of a "sunken garden."
Retired teacher James Fraser was part of the school's first Grade 2 class.
Fraser says that back in 1964, Grandin Park was a new subdivision, and its now-towering trees were still just tiny saplings.
"This was the absolute last building in town going to the southwest," Fraser says of the school – everything beyond it was forest and bush.
The school was half the size it is today (it had a major expansion in 1970), and had cloakrooms in every classroom, he continues.
"We found that very modern."
Fraser says big collars and false turtlenecks (or "dickies") were all the rage back then, as were long hair, leather pants and miniskirts – even on the teachers.
The school was initially built around an "open classroom" concept with few walls, says former teacher Sandra Fildes – a great idea, apart from the fact that it was so noisy you couldn't hear the teacher talk. There were no computers back then, no We Day events and no sports academy.
"I think there were lots of kids in my class that would have loved to be in the sports academy," says the teacher who taught Jarome Iginla.
Some of the biggest changes at the school involve technology, Fraser says. The students who interviewed him had iPads and Wi-Fi, both technologies that were unheard of even 10 years ago.
Playgrounds have also evolved, says Leo Bruseker, principal at Albert Lacombe from 1982 to 1990. Back in the 1960s, Albert Lacombe would have had high teeter-totters and 14-foot-tall metal slides that shot students out at the bottom.
"You'd never put one of those in a playground now!"
Another big change was the end of smoking in the staff room, Fildes says. In the old days, the staff room would often be blue with smoke, with great clouds of it billowing forth whenever a student opened the door.
"It was extremely controversial," she recalls, and pitted non-smokers against smokers in the '80s.
Fortunately, city council quashed the debate at Albert Lacombe when it brought in its first smoking bylaw in 1990, Bruseker says.
"Now, people don't even smoke in their own homes."
Fraser said his time at Albert Lacombe gave him the foundation he needed to succeed at school and become a teacher.
"It's great to be able to attend school in your own neighbourhood," he says.
"It gives you a sense of community and belonging."
The 50th anniversary celebration runs from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday at Albert Lacombe. Call 780-459-4478 for details, or visit facebook.com/albertlacombe50yearcelebration.
