Alison's graduation ceremony and dance

Before we go any further .... let me reminisce ... here is Alison when she was 4, at our town house in Guelph. It seems like about four years ago :-). She's fourteen now. **sigh**


Okay, I'm back.

The Ceremony: Her grade 8 teacher, Steve O'Brien, presenting her with her diploma. Steve was known for his propensity to break in to one of many accents, occasionally spending whole days teaching in a British, Irish, Southern, etc. fashion. Alison presented one oral book report (on the book David Copperfield) using a cockney accent, just to see if she could do it :-). He was not known for his math abilities, and some conversations were had over the year regarding Alison needing extra work, rather than spending her time teaching the other students ;-/.

Here is Alison receiving her diploma and "hardware" (tee hee, a pen set!)



Here is Madell presenting the French Award, also showing the stage decorated by the grade 8 class.


Here is a member of the Eastern Star presenting the two winners of the STAR award to Tommy Burris and Alison. This was a NON-academic award, presented to students who exemplify a spirit of volunteerism and service to their community. Each student was presented with a cash award of $150! Alison's application essay focused on church activities, all of her 4H involvement, her library stint last summer, and helping out neighbours.


She also received the Language Arts Award, and the award for Overall Academic Achievement. It was quite the evening.

Photos taken after the ceremony:
Sophiasburgh Central School is one of the most beautiful elementary schools I've ever seen. The landscaping in the yard is truly beautiful. Here is Alison underneath one of the Catalpa trees ...


With Mr. O'Brien ...


... and here are both Alison and Claire with Miss Bell. This is a poignant photo because Miss Bell was transferred to a school in Trenton for next school year after five years at SCS. Her transfer signifies not only the loss of an inspired teacher, who loved challenging the students in the grade 7 class to debate, but also the loss of the entire instrumental music program, and very likely the biannual musical as well. She put her heart and soul into "Enchanted Sleeping Beauty"; Claire adores her and she has been an excellent model for Claire who aspires to be a teacher. Both girls were in instrumental band under her tutelage. She will be missed. There are many who are upset with the board's decision ... including Miss Bell.


This is a fun photo. The car belongs to Mr. Vermander, the special education and science teacher. Rumour has it he owns 12 cars :-). Posing in the driver's seat is Brandon Hope, one of the other students also attending PECI in the Venture Program with Alison. Pooky Scott, the school principal, is in the yellow dress on the left. The gentleman on the right is Mr. Scott MacDonald, who was the previous principal and comes back for ... well ... pretty much everything. He is loved.

And a shot of the girls and Angie, who joined us as part of our family :-). We met Angie when the kids went to Sonrise Christian Academy in town. Her family owns the Golden Inn (Chinese food) restaurant in town, and keep a crazy schedule. We "adopted" her a couple of years ago, and make sure she gets out to youth group activities, movies, or whatever. We love her to bits!



The Dance:

The very first dance at the grad dance was a father-daughter/mother-son dance. It was so special, and very poignant. This was my other "moment" of the evening; watching Kev and Alison dancing and knowing how very different the whole evening might have been had he not made it in January. I will treasure this photo, and this moment, always. Not to mention how incredibly mature Alison looks dancing on the arm of her dad. There's a song out right now called "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman, and it speaks of a father teaching his daughter to dance during various seasons of her growing up. It's beautiful; click on the song name to see a Youtube video of the song. (This particular song is made even more significant because not long after it was released, Steven's youngest daughter was killed in a freak car accident in the family driveway.)



The following photos were taken by Kev (unbeknownst to Alison), who chaperoned the evening along with Mr O'Brien, Pooky and one other parent. Alison wasn't sure she would enjoy the dance, but it was a blast! I've never heard of a grade 8 grad dance where significant dancing took place, but this class rocked. They danced the whole night, doing a lot of line dances and group dancing, and quite a number of slower dances as well. Yes, Alison danced with three boys :-). Two were normal polite kids; the other one may have taken advantage of the situation, but he kept nervously eyeing Kevin :-) . The chaperones only had a few cases of boys' hands travelling farther south than necessary, and they were right on it :-). No issues at all with booze, drugs or cigarettes; how I love a rural school!



This photo shows a few of the friends that Alison made this year, as well as Pooky again. The girls in the black and white dress is Sarah Stanton, the other girl from the class that will be in the Venture Program next year with Alison.


And that's it for the evening! Hope you enjoyed the photos.