MOOSE JAW — On June 6, the Comfort Inn’s Hospitality Room was filled with laughter, memories, and camaraderie as nine former students reunited as part of an ongoing tradition to reminisce about their days of study at the Sion Academy, which is now known as Vanier Collegiate in Moose Jaw.
The reunion is significant, former Sion Academy student Fairlie Coates explained, because this same group has continued the traditional five-year meeting without interruption since graduating back in 1967.
“Nine of us came together for the reunion because we all went to high school together at Sion (Academy), and we all turned 75 years old this year, so it was a special get together,” she said.
The group originally consisted of 18 ladies, but due to the demands of life, Coates said nine of them regularly meet to form the group’s core members. These nine former students continue to meet every five years in Moose Jaw for two days of “doing things together, reminiscing, and laughing about things that happened in our high school years,” and others join if they can.
The Sion Academy was originally founded in 1924 as an all-girls Catholic high school, and Coates said the school was mostly taught by nuns – a common practice for Catholic schools at the time.
“It was very well disciplined,” she recalled. “We couldn’t go off the grounds of Sion – like, we couldn’t go to the corner store or anything.”
Students at the time were also required to wear school uniforms, and although Christian-themed classes are still taught at Vanier, Coates said she learned to read Latin and was taught life skills as part of her education.
“When I say life skills, I mean you learned respect. There was just that little added touch to it, and it has stayed with us,” she said. This life skills component was aided by smaller class sizes and a shared participation in religious celebrations including prayers and holiday festivities.
“Everybody knew everybody else, and we were like a family,” she added.
The group initially met in Grade 9, and it was here that their lasting friendships were first founded.
“We all graduated (together as friends),” Coates said. “But we had all started in Grade 9 at Sion. We were (originally) from all over … and (the academy) has been our connection ever since.”
Coates was originally from a small community north of Moose Jaw and said many of the girls came from surrounding rural communities as far away as Boharm. She said many of the girls didn’t know each other initially, and a few rural students boarded on site at the academy.
Fifty-seven years on, the class of ’67 has dispersed far and wide. Coates said that no matter how far they’ve each travelled, everybody keeps in touch through emails, texting, or regular meetups. Four of the ladies continue to meet up at least once each year and they select an interesting new venue each time they visit.
The most significant part of the reunion, Coates said, was “the fact that, (nearly) 60 years later, we’re still coming back to Moose Jaw because of our friendships that were formed through the Sion Academy.”
Vanier Collegiate first opened in 1966 as a unisex Catholic high school and in 1999 the original Sion Academy building was demolished.
Today, the site of the former academy sits just south of Vanier Collegiate at 324 MacDonald Street as a teacher’s parking space and the former front walkway to the academy is now set up as the school’s Labyrinth of Peace.
