Entertainment
3 October, 2024
Students in class of their own
There have been a couple of anniversaries involving local schools in recent months.
Last year the ‘Goss’ covered the 125th birthday of Mossman State School originally formed as Mossman River State School in 1898.
Earlier this year, I also covered the 90th anniversary of the establishment of St Augustine’s Catholic Primary School, Mossman, with the arrival the of the Sisters of Mercy.
Similarly, last week saw another celebration from one of our local educational establishments, that being the Mossman State High School’s ‘class of 1994’ 30th year celebrations.
Organisers Rebecca Phillips, Larissa Walker and Amy Noli have been working hard since last year getting in contact with over 100 students who schooled at Mossman State High School from years 8-12.
As one can imagine, this would have no doubt been quite a task, requiring many phone calls and emails. Social media turned out to be a great help with past students networking and interacting to track down other class of 1994 students.
Ultimately, 53 past school attendees turned up for the birthday celebration held at Hemingways in Port Douglas. Apart from a number of current locals, past students came from all over Australia, with some others making a longer trip, having moved overseas since leaving school.
Overseeing the proceedings were former 1994 school captains Corinne Howell and Chris Ammundsen, who welcomed the group to the night of memories and stories from over the last 30 years.
A large number of old photos were on display plus some student report cards which hopefully all showed straight As.
Apparently, no former teachers were present on the night, even though some are very much still alive and kicking in the local community.
The lack of 1994 staff, for the evening, hopefully allowed the former 90s students to misbehave a little more – should they wish.
Many venturing back to the Douglas Shire took advantage of their trip and extended their stay to take a holiday, catch up with family and to also keep the celebrations going beyond the formal evening last Saturday night.
One of the challenges of the evening was to recreate a picture taken 30 years ago involving as many of the original students as possible. All of those available went to the top of the class and Hemingways’ stairs to produce a superb reenactment from three decades ago.
I’m pleased to say that all past students were on their best behaviour with no detentions handed out at the end of the evening.
I’m off to check those school reports, so for now it’s Gazza signing out.
Send your stories to gazza@cairnslocalnews.com.au
