Forty years later, a group G.P. Vanier graduates will again meet in the school cafeteria to play cards.
Saturday, Aug. 3 marks the 40-year reunion of the 1973 grad class from Vanier. It will be on a drop-in basis from noon to 8 p.m. — and just like when they were still high school students, organizer Heather Walker says the group will get together to hang out in Vanier's cafeteria.
"That's where we spent all our time playing cards so — 'I'll meet you in the caf,'" says Walker, who now lives in North Vancouver, and has organized a grad reunion every 10 years so the group can catch up.
"Our relationships were so incredibly important then, and we valued our friendships — and quite a number of us are still friends after all these years," she continues.
Now a Grade 8 to 12 school, Vanier only had Grade 11 and 12 students attend it at the time this group graduated. Walker recalls students came to Vanier from all over the place at that time.
"We pooled in from everywhere. We had Campbell River and Tahsis, and Comox and Cumberland, everybody in between, all the feeder schools," she says.
She notes Campbell River had a high school but if some students had family in the Valley they would go to Vanier instead.
Over 440 names are on Walker's list of 1973 grads, and she notes people come from all over the world to attend the reunions, and share what's happened in their lives since high school.
"We've got one bloke who married a woman in Australia, had four boys with her, met somebody else, and they've since moved to Saudi Arabia and he had another a baby...and his oldest has got his Phd in microbiology at the University of Sacramento," says Walker.
"You'd never be able to share that wow factor in an e-mail with each other — and he's coming back, he's coming from Saudi Arabia.
"So, each one of us is glued to 1973, somehow we're all still connected, and that's important."
Though drop-ins are welcome, Walker encourages attendees to register so she knows how much food is needed. She can be reached at 604-983-2333.
writer@comoxvalleyrecord.com