Class reunions for all Don't miss this year's action-packed Centennial Weekend Celebration May 11-14 including world-class rugby Girls soccer exhibition game Celebrating our School House Everyone’s invited... don’t miss it! Celebrating Our Century Spring 2006 BC Provincial Champions Boys AA Soccer 2005-06 Teacher and alumnus Ian Farish (SMUS 89) inspires and mentors Middle School music students. Advancing Excellence St. Michaels University School has shaped the lives of a century of students by giving them the opportunity to find their excellence. As an alumnus, you now have the opportunity to share your SMUS experience with your family and others in your community. Consider becoming a SMUS ambassador to your local area, supporting the Admissions Office in their efforts to spread the word about our School and find candidates that will benefit from the SMUS tradition of excellence. For more information, contact the Admissions Office at (250) 370-6170 (toll free in North America at 1-800-661-5199) or send an email to [email protected]. Financial assistance available • Visit our website at www.smus.bc.ca • Co-educational • Day School - Grades K-12 • Boarding - Grades 8-12 • ESL - Grades 8-10 Outstanding preparation for higher learning and for life. Kimbell Hall and David Heffernan are the Centennial Year Head Girl and Head Boy. See page 6 for details. school ties – spring 2006 1 SCHOOL TIES is distributed to more than 6,000 On the Cover members of the St. Michaels University School community, including current families, friends, Ed Fairhurst (SMUS 97) will grace and current and past staff and students. The the fields of St. Michaels University School goal of the publication is to communicate current in a highly anticipated rugby match during the activities and initiatives and provide articles and Centennial Weekend Celebrations, May 11-14, and reports on the alumni community. If you have will offer the entire SMUS community something to any comments or suggestions regarding this cheer about. Six other recent SMUS grads will be playing alongside Ed on the Rugby Canada team. publication, please contact Jenus Friesen at (250) 370-6169 or e-mail: [email protected] This group of accomplished alumni athletes continue to ply their trade with Canada’s Senior Men’s Rugby squad, and six capped Published by: players (Mike Danskin, Mike Pyke, Ed Fairhurst, The Advancement Office at John Graf, Jeremy Cordle, and David Spicer) St. Michaels University School 3400 Richmond Road, Victoria will again don the school colours in May when a British Columbia, Canada V8P 4P5 SMUS Invitational XV battles Canada’s National team. Telephone: (250) 592-2411 (See page 26 for a run-down on all of these players.) Canada photo Rugby Admissions: 1-800-661-5199 e-mail: [email protected] Archive copies of School Ties magazine can be found in the publications section of the school website: www.smus.bc.ca Editor: Jenus Friesen Alumni Editors: Louise Winter Cliff Yorath Contributors (in no particular order): Robert Snowden, Robert Wilson, Ian Hyde-Lay, ur one hundredth birthday celebrations continue! We kicked off the Brenda Waksel, Janice Iverson, Donna Ray, Kevin Cook, Ian Farish, Craig Farish, O centennial year in September, with everyone joining together to form a huge ‘100’ Xavier Abrioux, Louise Winter, Stephen Martin, figure on the school’s front field. This was followed by a very successful commemorative Susan Saunders, Cliff Yorath, Kaye Mains, centennial gala in the new William Monkman Athletic Complex, held in October and attended by Nancy Richards, Jim de Goede, Jim Kerr, hundreds of current and past students, parents, faculty, staff, and community. (See write-up in this Keith Jones, Jeannie Fuller, Maria Goncalves, issue, page 21.) Peter Tongue, Gary Barber, John Reid, Matt Franklin, Linda Rajotte, Bill Buckingham, The next major event will be the action-packed Centennial Weekend, May 11-14. This Campbell Hall, Patty Dyck, Evelyn Zapantis, occasion will coincide with the annual alumni homecoming, and this year will be geared toward all Sean Hayden, Laura Authier, Margot Bergland, graduating classes. The celebration will include a world-class rugby match with Team Canada taking Peter Leggatt, Samantha Lee, on an invitational team of international all-stars. Team members will include a number of SMUS Donna Williams, Gregor Klenz. alums, including Ed Fairhurst (SMUS 97), seen on the cover of this issue. See the alumni section We apologize for any omissions. (page 26) to find out more about SMUS’ rugby Photography: heritage. SMUS community members All the while, School House stands at the Cover photo courtesy of Rugby Canada centre of this action. It is currently undergoing a Back cover: Jenus Friesen major seismic upgrade, refit, and transformation. Production: The centre spread of this magazine will give you a Reber Creative cross-section sneak preview of the changes taking place, including the enlargement of a magnificent Printing: library space! Lithographed in Canada W by Hillside Printing Ltd., As you read through these pages, you’ll Victoria, BC discover that there has been no shortage of events, accomplishments, news, weddings, If you are interested babies, graduations, and more within our thriving in attending school events, community. We hope you’re able to attend the call (250) 592-2411 grand finale to the centennial celebrations in May, for further details, or visit and look forward to your support this fall as we the school’s website re-open, with much excitement and anticipation, Calendar of Events: School House – the newly renovated and www.smus.bc.ca refurbished centre of our community! – Jenus Friesen, Editor Fireworks, Saturday, May 13, 2006 at 9:00 pm. 2 c e n t u r y The Quest by Robert T. Snowden, Head of School he lessons one learns: in the first Once ashore, a mess of wetsuits, jackets, T week of October, when the last of our fall backpacks, and spray skirts was soon spread out, outdoor trips take place, the skies aren’t festooning trees and scattered on the ground like the much help in predicting the weather. I had set out remains of a flea market. After pulling my own kayak in my kayak to meet the group of grade 11 students up, I looked down onto the dock to see Beatrix and who were going to overnight at our property on Anja, the two girls from Germany, in their swimsuits, Thetis Island, just north of Salt Spring. The sun was diving into the water. This was the Pacific Ocean, it brilliant, there was no wind, and consequently my was October, and the water temperature was about kayaking jacket lay strapped securely on the deck in 9 degrees Celsius, 48 Fahrenheit. A couple of other front of me. My short sleeves and bare arms stuck out students and I watched in disbelief in the rain – we of my PFD as if it were July. were already soaked anyway. I discovered that two I was wildly early for our rendezvous at a small days earlier, while the students learned their various islet about a mile north of Thetis. Off Pilkey Point, kayak rescues and strokes in Cadboro Bay, a pod of the northernmost tip of Thetis, I rested my paddle killer whales had come by to cavort. across the cockpit to watch a small flock of surf Anja and Beatrix pulled themselves out of the scooters. Dark birds with white markings and thick water without drama, and headed for a shower. One bills, their dipping and darting among some low more night – a warm and dry one – and they would jagged rocks created the only visible bit of white be off this island and back at school, their little jaunt water. The antic behaviour of birds can be endlessly over. If a picture were painted of this trip, given the Robert Snowden, Head of School entertaining – as can be the face of a large seal, such crowd of other images, the harlequins might just cling as the one that surfaced and sank about ten times to a place at the edge. around me as I paddled lazily toward my rendezvous As an English teacher, many times I have told – a patient face, a little curious, as if my kayak was students to scratch into their notebooks that the an interruption more to its boredom than to its pattern of the quest gives shape to all stories: as serenity. Cormorants are ubiquitous on the coast, humans, the lesson goes, we once possessed the secret Our Mission is also wonderfully, and at the islet, the cormorants struck their pointing of life, lost it, and now are forever trying to regain powerfully kinetic. It is the pose while they dirtied the concrete base of the large it. It was only recently that I was struck by how the language of seeking, of shaping, triangular marker erected on the islet as a warning to language of our Mission is the language of the quest. of preparing. approaching boats. Our Mission is also wonderfully, powerfully kinetic. Finally, the 12 paddlers came into sight, about It is the language of seeking, of shaping, of preparing. It two hours from their put-in on DeCourcy Island is of the pursuit of truth and goodness. For a hundred where they had camped in the rain the previous years now, parents have been sending their sons and night. Their spirits were bright as the sun. In addition daughters to SMUS – and before that to University to the two guides and four students from Victoria, School and St. Michael’s School – in the belief that the group included a girl from Seattle, a boy from they would arrive somehow at a better place as a Alberta, two girls from Germany, a boy from Hong result.