Artists, authors, first responders, teachers and more all came from one high school graduating class
When the Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School class of 2025 walked last June, they probably weren’t thinking where they might be in 50 years, and the same was probably true when the class of 1975 donned their caps and gowns. Luckily for the class of 1975, a few of their number knew exactly where they wanted to be, back together in Selkirk, and that’s just what they did when they planned a 50th reunion this summer.
“Our whole purpose of throwing it together was to reunite everyone. And it was just a great success. Everybody’s now of grandparent age. It was so nice to see so many people out and sitting around and just reminiscing. People talked (who were friends) in high school, and some who didn’t ever know were talking to each other about their lives. ‘What’s happened?’ It was just a fantastic event for everybody getting together,” said Jim Schreyer, Class of ’75 graduate, class of ‘75 student council member and one of the reunion’s organizers.
He says that they had a little over 230 people participate in the various activities over the two days of events that they planned.
“The first day, on Friday, we had about 16 former teachers who were still living; they came out, and we had a great show there on Friday night. One of our guys, Nick Burns, on the committee, he’s an artist, and he put together a display there in the trophy cases of all our different artists and photographers, and we had other people who have written different books, and so there was an art show on the Friday night for a display. At the school, tours were running every half hour showing the different parts of the school, which have changed quite a bit since we went to school there. Then, the next day, we had a banquet at the Selkirk Golf Course, and it was fantastic too. We had lots of different activities, like 70s music playing while we ate, and there was a 70s trivia competition. It was a great two days put together for people to reminisce a bit about the times we were in high school,” he said.
Schreyer had a leg up on the changes to the high school over the years, having gone right back to high school after completing his education as a teacher. He spent 35 years of his career educating future students.
“It was great to see the school. It was such an active school, and we were there to start with. I mean, the vision from people who put that school together to have a swimming pool attached and an underground track was amazing, and the different vocational programs that take place. And so, it was great to see the school again and it looks great still,” he said.
He also said it was great to reconnect with former classmates, especially since so many of them had come in from out of Selkirk. He said that, through the process of an informal show of hands, about a third were still living in Selkirk, a third had moved to other places in Manitoba, and the final third now lived in other parts of Canada or even internationally, with some coming in from Mexico and Australia.
“Whether we moved away or not, that’s where we had our high school friends and where we grew up as teenagers and started setting out for what we’re going to do for life. You know, it’s home, for sure. It was great to come back and have everybody reunite,” said Schreyer.
In addition to coming back to a community that they’d missed, they also wanted to help the current community, so at the event, they did a little fundraising.
“I got a couple of bomber tickets for a raffle prize that were donated to our graduating reunion. We had raffles for different prizes. We had some of our talent from our grade, with paintings, and one was a photo that was framed by a professional photographer, and we raised the money,” explained Schreyer.
They did this fundraising because they wanted to give back to the community. To do that in a way that the money would go to where it would help, they donated it to the Selkirk & District Community Foundation, which means that the $4,500 will be available to help projects all over the school division.
Schreyer attributes the success of this event to the many people who came together to organize it, including most of their student council.
“It was the same people who were the big organizers who helped organize this event. We had our secretary, our yearbook editor, our class president, and I was a sports rep. We had all these people (who’d done work as an) activities coordinator and we had such expertise in setting up the website and ticketing from Nick Burns, that was fantastic. It made it very easy for people. The hard part is always finding people, and luckily enough with people still in the community, I helped a lot with hunting down people after teaching their kids so I knew which people were still in town,” he explained.
He also said that the Facebook group that they created was a great way to coordinate.
Though the reunion is now over, the community has been reformed, and Schreyer says that some groups of attendees are talking about getting together again with their friends in the future.
The class of ’75 also challenges other classes to see if they can manage to get together, too.
Bert Skogan threw down the gauntlet, saying, “Only the class of ‘75 could pull this off!”
