Alumni 50th Anniversary, Volunteer & Donor Thank You

February 19, 1975, the Centennial Celebrations Committee was formalized and produced an extraordinary celebration May 1976 honouring the founding of Vic High. It eventually changed its name to the Victoria High School Alumni Association. February 19, 2025, the Association invited volunteers, reunion organizers, donors to a 50th Anniversary celebration, to thank them for their dedication to building the Association and supporting Vic High.

It was a magical event! Vic High students greeted guests with enthusiasm, and with tokens of appreciation from the Alumni Store – a Vic High pen, a sticker of the old logo in the Roper Gym – and a program listing all the evening’s activities. Leadership students positioned themselves around the school to guide guests, answer questions, meet and chat with alumni.

                                       

CHEK Upside Guys Sport the Black & Gold

Not only did guests and students and staff have a lot of fun, CHEK-TV News Hour viewers got a peek inside the celebration as the Upside Guys broadcast their live segments from the Heritage Hallway. Watch them here! 

The last half-hour featured a program in the auditorium. First up was Board Chair Helen Edwards, VHS 1964, announcing she was doubling the Alumni’s Heritage Projects fund with a personal donation, and the entire $30k would go to Vic High to complete its featured heritage projects in the school. Thank you, Helen!

Ian McKinnon, VHS 1966, Board Director, shared insights into the role the Alumni played in saving Vic High and supporting the renewal of the stadium and field area.

Over the past 15 years, the alumni association was involved in two of its biggest endeavours – working towards a renewal of the very building in which we are today, and rebuilding the outdoor recreational facilities which had fallen into sad disrepair. For both of these projects the association always worked with the school, its students and staff, the district and the neighbourhood to ensure that their needs were paramount.

While we all look with pride at this building and its importance to the built heritage of this city and the Fernwood neighbourhood, we also knew that the changes to education and students’ needs meant that a building from a century earlier needed to be re-imagined. By 2018, when decisions had to be made on the future of Vic High, we had researched a range of approaches that had been taken to these sorts of challenges at places like St. Ann’s Academy here in Victoria, and to schools in Vancouver and Ontario. The most remarkable find though was a school building that had housed the original Portland/Lincoln high school in Portland Oregon which bore a startling resemblance to Vic High. It had recently been substantially renewed into a performing arts hub, and demonstrated the possibilities of this building.

When this was presented to our local MLA’s and cabinet ministers, Carole James and Rob Fleming, and to the district, they became supporters and decided to proceed with the work to create the wonderful building we have today. We owe an enormous debt to Rob and Carole who are with us here today. Renewing the school’s outdoor athletic facilities also began with experts volunteering their skills to design a state-of-the-art stadium. With the conceptual plans, we consulted with and surveyed students, staff, potential users and the neighbourhood. Once again, listening to the students in particular was very instructive as they told us that many of them see Vic High’s specialty as the performing arts and special things like an astronomy deck. Very important.

Through fund raising led by Roger Skillings and agreements with the city and sporting groups, over a million dollars was raised and presented to the district. Over the past months though, perhaps the greatest reward has been what anyone walking by the schools sees every evening now – a lit field that is in constant use by the neighbourhood. 

Thanking Principal Parker

Keith McCallion, former Vic High Principal, shared alumni sentiments and presented Aaron Parker with an auditorium seat plaque.

Aaron Parker has provided outstanding leadership for the past 9 years, bringing Vic High through a world pandemic, taking students and staff from classroom learning to online learning. He has provided invaluable input into planning of the seismic upgrade and renovation to this hundred year old building, overseen the move Vic High from the Fernwood Campus to the SJ Willis campus and back again, and navigated the challenges of being part of a large school district. On top of all that, and being principal of a school with 1,040 students in grades 9-12 with 85 teachers and supporting staff, he has supported the Alumni Association with ideas, advice, information and guidance equalling thousands of hours, this on top of his other 2 full time day jobs of principal and construction manager. Vic High kids love him, we love him, and every one of us involved with the Alumni Association is in his debt for everything he has done for us and for Vic High.

 

 

Principal Parker Thanks the Alumni

His comments on camera made us blush – as did his words in the auditorium:

I was appointed the Principal of Victoria High School in January of 2017.  So for just over 8 years I have had the great honour of serving as the Principal of Victoria High School.  And what an 8 years it has been. I admit that the weight of stewarding the students in my care through uncertain times, the responsibility of protecting and promoting the legacy of of the oldest and possibly most prominent public high school in our province along with an opportunity to contribute to a vision of education for our future graduates, has at times felt heavy.

There are three groups that I need to acknowledge.  The first is our vibrant and diverse student body.  Vic High students may look very different today than they did when we were winning provincial championships, leading the province in academics, arts and public service. But they embrace and exemplify Vic High’s values of inclusion, creativity and service exactly as Vic High students have for almost 150 years.

The second are the staff who have done all the heavy lifting.  I will never be able to adequately thank our teachers and support staff for their dedication, loyalty and professionalism.

Finally, I need to thank our alumni association and alumni at large.  Regardless of the pressures of a very public and sometimes controversial project your alumni association has tirelessly supported our school.  When we talk about alumni we often speak of archives and heritage but there is no doubt in my mind that the work the Vic High Alumni Association has done with your collective support has secured and enhanced the futures of Vic High students for years to come.  I wish to sincerely thank you for your support.  Through student scholarships, specialty equipment for programs like robotics, astronomy, and broadcast media and enhancements of our school facilities.  I have no doubt our students will continue your legacy of service and leadership.

A Vic High Student Speaks

Sereia Felipe-Alves is a Grade 11 student who, along with Sam Lilas, has volunteered since Vic High moved back home in the alumni-run Archives and Museum. They’ve now been joined by Aldous Valour, another keen Vic High student who we featured in our Summer 2024 newsletter. Sereia shared her thoughts about what having Alumni support means to students at Vic High. Note the Vic High ‘letterman’ jacket she’s wearing. For months she’s been coveting one, just like one hanging in the Vic High Archives. Boxing Day, after dim sum in Chinatown, she and her family went to Valu Village and there on a rack was a Vic High jacket. You never know how or when the universe will deliver!

 

And Here’s A Little Alumni History

Denis Johnston, VHS 1967, former Staff, sent us this brief summary to share while he continues work on the Alumni’s history:

The Vic High Alumni Association has its roots in the Vic High Centennial of 1976. Led by Lawrie Wallace and Duncan Lorimer, a Centennial Celebrations Committee was incorporated under the Society Act on February 19, 1975 — fifty years ago today! The Vic High Centennial succeeded beyond the highest hopes of its organizers. It attracted some 10,000 attendees and raised almost $50,000. With this money, the Committee established two annual scholarships and purchased a 15-passenger bus to be used by sports teams and other school groups. After ’76, a smaller committee met each year to decide how to make best use of the remaining funds.

As interest rates declined in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Committee members realized they needed more fundraising to keep their financial promises to the school. Thanks to the vision of long-time teacher Fred Packford and principal Keith McCallion, an Alumni Association was formed for this goal. The two organizations merged in 1993; and by the official renaming of the Centennial Committee, the Vic High Alumni Association acquired legal standing as both a registered Society and a charitable organization. In a campaign led by Lawrie Wallace, the Association raised enough money to create a $160,000 endowment fund with the Vancouver Foundation.

The Association continues to serve as a crucial communications link among grads and grad classes, especially through its monthly newsletters and a website redesigned in 2020. Through bequests and other donations, Alumni-funded scholarships and bursaries have grown from $1000 in 1995 to over $30,000 last year. The award-winning Vic High Archives and Museum, run entirely by volunteers, now provides the Association with a daily presence in the school.