2024  The Great War Banner On Display Again

Vic High staff and students who served in World War 1 were honoured again this year as Vic High’s Great War Banner was hung on the school’s Fernwood Street side for the first time since 2019. The banner was presented to Vic High in 1920. White maple leaves denote nursing sisters, larger maple leaves near the top are for staff, and smaller maple leaves are for students.  Blue leaves denote a Vic High alumni who came home, and red leaves are for those who gave their lives.  Read more here. 

Vic High Vice-Principal Dani Mercer and Biology teacher David Young led the process to feed the banner out David’s biology class windows and secure it to cleats installed on inside window frames, with help from Vic High Archives Club members Sereia Felips-Alves, Sam Lilas, and Tallulah McLeod, and students in David’s biology class.

Once the banner was hung, VP Mercer emailed all staff with information about the banner and a slide presentation was launched on all the school’s hallway television monitors. Archives Club members made an announcement about the banner, encouraging students and staff to visit the banner.

 

 

The banner was found in Vic High’s basement in 2004 and has hung most years since then, except the years Vic High was temporarily in session at the old S.J. Willis school. It lives year-round carefully folded between layers of acid-free tissue, in the largest acid-free archival box the Vic High Alumni could buy. The Alumni funds all archival supplies for the Vic High Archives and Museum, and Alumni volunteers manage the school’s growing collections of historical artifacts and information.

PS  Vic High made the news!  Victoria Times Colonist November 8.