It’s fitting that the first history exhibit to open in St. Albert after the creation of the Joan Trettler Heritage Centre is one about a school Trettler taught in.
About 50 people were at the St. Albert Public School district office Thursday to open a history exhibit on Elmer S. Gish School. The exhibit is part of an ongoing series of public school profiles organized by the Historical Foundation of School District 6.
These exhibits have traditionally been hosted in the district office’s heritage centre room and co-organized by historian Joan Trettler. The foundation officially renamed the room the Joan Trettler Heritage Centre Thursday as part of the Gish exhibit’s opening ceremony.
This year’s school history exhibit is a bit different from previous ones in that it’s housed in display cases in the hall outside the heritage centre instead of inside it within glass-topped tables, said foundation president Pat Babiuk. The foundation made this switch after the district replaced those tables with opaque-topped ones.
Trettler tribute
Trettler was a teacher, administrator, trustee and board chair with St. Albert Public for some 44 years and co-founder of the historical foundation.
“Joan was the exemplar for a trustee,” said Glenys Edwards, board chair of St. Albert Public, and was respected province-wide for her insight and dedication to public education.
Trettler taught at and served as administrator of Sir George Simpson, Paul Kane, Elmer S. Gish and Ronald Harvey schools prior to her retirement in 1997, said foundation member Brenda Kane. She enjoyed running the Grade 6 outdoor camp at Simpson (even during that one year where tent caterpillars kept falling into their frying pans) and brought in fun events like Easter egg rolls and St. Patrick’s Day at other schools.
“She was interested in the past, present and future of our school district,” Kane continued, and about 15 years ago rallied volunteers to start this history series on the district’s schools.
Trettler died last January. Scholarships at Bellerose and Paul Kane have been established in her name. A tribute display to her career stands just outside the heritage room.
Ron Trettler, her former husband, said Joan would have been very proud to see the heritage centre named in her honour.
“It’s an awesome tribute to her legacy.”
Gish the man
Elmer Gish was born in 1921 on a farm near Stettler, said his daughter, Mary Binette. He served overseas with the Royal Canadian Navy from 1942 to 1946, during which he met and married his wife Catherine and took part in the Battle of North Cape.
Gish was a teacher, counsellor, and administrator with Edmonton Public from 1949 to 1970 and served as superintendent of the St. Albert Protestant Separate School Board from 1970 to 1979 – a period of rapid growth in the district that saw Paul Kane, Wild Rose, Ronald Harvey and W.D. Cuts all open their doors.
Gish was interested in everything, but especially people, Binette said – he’d go to town to pick up something and wouldn’t come home for two hours because he’d keep running into people he knew. He was also an optimist, and would declare they would “drive out the rain” whenever it was pouring down prior to a family camping trip.
“Dad was a generous host,” Binette said, and would often have guests over for dinner – sometimes without telling Catherine. After he gave her maybe an hour’s notice to throw something together for some visiting Japanese teachers, “Dad was clearly informed of invitation guidelines” after they left.
Binette said Gish was in Hawaii when he got the call about the district naming a school after him, and was “flabbergasted,” as the board had recently decided to no longer name schools after contemporary figures. He was a frequent presence at the school prior to his death in 2001, and also sponsored the Grade 10 academic award at Paul Kane.
Gish the school
Elmer S. Gish School opened to students in September 1980. John Bauman was principal, and Trettler was one of its teachers.
The school was the only K-9 school in town at the time, said John Strembitski, who taught there for 16 years in the 1980s and 1990s and now serves as its principal.
“We marketed it as ‘a decade of excellence,’ ” he said, as students could potentially spend 10 years at the school. The K-9 structure let teachers get to know students very well, but also proved challenging when it came to finding enough kids to field junior high sports teams.
The exhibit features stories and photos from throughout the school’s history, including Carolyn Hernandez’s award-winning music program and the time teacher Marlene Keanie led the school to complete 1,000 environmental projects, earning her an Alberta Emerald Award.
The exhibit is open all year at district office.
