Residents learn the ABC’s of Dunster school history

By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Reporter, RMG

Several generations of Dunster residents gathered for an evening of socializing, songs and joke telling at the Dunster School reunion on the weekend of Saturday, August 2nd through Sunday, August 3rd.

The school is a place full of nostalgia for alumni and parents alike, said local Nancy Taylor, who helped organize the event with Loretta Simpson.

“It was a very happy place, very welcoming. It was the hub of the community,” said Taylor, whose children attended the school for roughly ten years total. “[We] wanted to reconnect with people about what a great place it was when it was thriving.”

The first Dunster school was established in 1915, according to an exhibit at the reunion. The original school building was replaced in 1932, which burned down 31 years later. The current Dunster schoolhouse was completed in 1964. Since then, locals and School District 57 have worked together to add a gym, playground and tennis court, according to the Dunster schoolhouse website.

In the 1990s, when the School District said the Dunster school would need to close due to low enrolment projections, locals rallied to have the school designated as a fine arts elementary school – one of just two in the province. The school was nearly condemned permanently until the Dunster Fine Arts School Society bought the building from the School District, Taylor said.

That dedication to the schoolhouse has kept it as a thriving community hub to this day, she added.

“The community has taken it over, and it’s required a high level of volunteerism to do it,” she said. “We’ve done a lot of improvements to the building, and there’s still more to do with the place.”

The building may see a new cohort of students soon, Taylor added – the Rocky Mountain Forest Academy hopes to establish a nature school there, where children can participate in an outdoor curriculum. The Academy declined The Goat’s interview requests.

Resident Alaina Chapman said her children attended the school from 1995 onward. She attended the reunion to look at old class photos, learn some history, and revisit fond memories.

“The Christmas plays were amazing – they always had elaborate costumes and these incredible storylines,” Chapman said. “It was a nice community. The big kids took care of the little kids. They’d help them put on their boots.”

Thelma Lewis, who attended the school in the 1950s, made the drive up from Calgary for the reunion. Her parents and siblings also attended the school, which was a one-room building at the time.

Lewis fondly recalls a sense of community among the students, and described her teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, as wonderful.

“When we first started going to school, there was no bus that ran from Dunster up to the Croydon school. So my mom had an old car, and it had a sign on it that said ‘School Bus,’” Lewis laughed. “She used to pick all of us up and bring us to school and take us home.”

It was a different experience than students today might have, Lewis added – kids spent lots of time outside, were forbidden from writing with their left hands and rang a bell outside the school to announce the beginning of the day.

“It was fun,” she said of her time at the school. “It was different years ago… Things have changed so much now.”

The school may see more reunions in the future. Taylor says she hopes to attract even more alumni the next time around.

“I think this is the reunion before the really big reunion,” she said. “There’s a lot of people that were unable to come. I’d like to see us do this again in another four or five years and really get a critical mass.”