Saturday, December 8, 2007

A half century after they bade adieu to Excelsior, scores of past students from the class of 1958 will reconvene in Jamaica during Founders Day 2008 to celebrate their Golden Anniversary.

As they gather in Jamaica in January to observe their Class Reunion, many of these alumni will be catching up with old friends that they have not seen in decades. The week-long Reunion festivities will be centered around the Past Students Alumni Brunch on Sunday Janurary 20, 2008 and include a full slate of activities

"We have found class members in New Mexico, Rochester, Florida, New York, Toronto and Jamaica" Victor Smith, one of the chief organizers, told AgeNotes.

Much fun and reliving old memories is anticipated, but this 50th Anniversary will not just be about nostalgia and misty memories. This is a group that was part of a history-making project that changed the face of education in Jamaica, and which would emerge as a watershed in the development of education at Excelsior and in the wider society.

Many of them met as the first batch of "overage"students, part of a grand experiment devised by Founder Hon. A.W. Powell in conjunction with then Premier of Jamaica, Hon. Norman Washington Manley.

"In 1956 Mr. Powell proposed to N. W. Manley, whose government was then in power, that he should send students who had passed 2nd and 3rd Jamaica Local exams to XLCR" Smith explained to AgeNotes.

"He would place them in 4th form and they would take Senior Cambridge in two years. Those under age 15 would be awarded scholarships while those over 15 would be fee- paying"

"Bear in mind that in those days the cut off age for entry into high school was 12 years. Our class entering in 1957 was the experimental group which was known as the over-age group and the scholarship given was known as The Overage Scholarship. We were not allowed to do any science subjects because the sciences would have required previous lab work prior to 4th form," he continued.

Since Smith, a recent retiree, had the time and commitment, the task fell to him to try to gather his classmates from various points around the globe to commemorate the Golden Anniversary of the class.

"Early this year it was suggested that we have a 50th reunion and since I have been fully retired since 2003 I was asked to plan it and find the original 37 class members. I discovered that 3 had passed on and of the remaining 34 I found 30. The 4 missing ones are:

Althea Davis

Henrietta Davis

Agnes Henry

The group has decided to endow an account from which annual awards will be made to the school /students in memory of Miss Joy Jones (later, Heron), form teacher of Form 4B4 of the class of 1958.

Seventeen prospective attendees have so far confirmed, while confirmation is pending from others.