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Graduations are
obviously not unique to our school, they are a common
feature of all schools. At the Espanola Public
School there have over the years been two graduation
ceremonies: the obvious one for Grade Eight students
leaving to move to the High School, the other for
Kindergarten children moving up into Grade One.
The latter has been around for many years as you can see
from the image below taken in the 1957. (shown here with
the permission of Dale Proctor) The teacher in the
image is Mary Landry. Below is a photo from 1959  It appears that in Mrs Landry's
day the ceremony was held in the Kindergarten room
but in later years it moved to the stage in the gym.
 Below is Dave Gallinger proudly
holding his kindergarten graduation certificate in
1956.
He is standing on the steps that once led to the entrance on Park Street.  Below are images of the Senior
Kindergarten Graduation in the 1990s.
    ***********************
The gym was also the venue for the Grade Eight Graduation and Awards Ceremony, often the last event of the school year held the night before school closed for the summer. As the name implies, the occasion also involved the awarding of prizes for achievements in various aspects of student life. Those students in Grade Seven who had earned awards were also invited to the event. The awards included in-school medals and trophies, as well as trophies and cash awards from community groups.      Jason Morrow (seen on the right
hand end of the student group in the image above)
wrote this about the awards system that was used
in the 1980s and into the 90s. "There
was a whole complex system of awards that was
run by Jack (Tait), based on 3
divisions - academic, participation and
athletics. Students earned points and
tabs or buttons in each category. .....
 .... If you got enough
points over two years you received a crest
with the colours of that category. If
you received crests in two categories, you
received a school crest. If you received
all three crests, you received a school
pin. There was a whole separate awards
ceremony for this during the school day at the
end of the year."
Students who received the school pin
also had their names engraved on a trophy.
 Below are the winners from each year.
 The article below refers to the 1982 graduation.  ******************************* In June of 1988, the evening began with the folding doors of the gym closed. One side of the gym was set up with tables and the evening began with a graduation banquet that included parents and students. Following the meal the folding doors were opened revealing the stage where the ceremony was to take place. Another year we invited two former students, Anne Marie Korber and Marilyn Laplant to entertain the audience. Ann-Marie singing and Marilyn providing accompaniment on the piano. These became one-off events though because the end of June was usually very hot and humid and the ceremony itself was often long enough for people to survive in a stifling gym.             Below is a photograph of a graduation ceremony taken after 1992  *************************
During the 1990s, in addition to
the awards mentioned above, the school presented
certificates to students in the Junior and
Intermediate Division at the end of each year.
The certificates contained stickers indicating the
areas of participation or achievement over the past
year. Below are examples.
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