We have included excerpts from letters sent by two of the early high school students which explain why we have shown pictures of the Normal students in this book. In the early years of high school education in Saskatchewan it was required that the students take a Normal Course in order to qualify for the second class standing. (Our grade eleven today roughly corresponds to the second class of that day). These Normal students then were Estevan's high school students too. In this book we have included pictures of the whole student body at Central School, because here the high school students were those in the back rows, while the little ones in front were just the beginners. We have shown pictures of the demolition of old Central School because we felt it was part of our past.

As nearly as possible we have arranged the pictures of this book in chronological order. We were unable to get pictures for every year but we did try to get something for each decade. We have not included many pictures from the years between 1951-1963 because these years have all been fully recorded in the Collegiate "Re-Echoes" or the Yearbooks, so we felt it would be needless duplication to present them here. However, the factual information recorded in the award lists and all other lists such as those of the Board and Staff are brought up to date and do include three years.

We have compiled lists of all the School Board members for the fifty years from 1914-1964. We have similar lists for all the Collegiate staff personnel; however, we should explain that teachers who taught only a partial term are not listed. This is not because we didn't appreciate their contributions but rather because we could not find any accurate records other than the Commencement programs and even some of these were missing. There was another reason--we wished to present a true picture of the size of the staff for each year and if we had listed two or three teachers holding the same position on the staff in any one year this would have been misleading. The dates for each year's staff memebers are those of the school year beginning with September.

As all historians must be mindful in the past, aware of the present, and conscious of the future, so have we tried to preserve our heritage in this book, to picture the school of today, and to leave for the future generations in our school a clearer and more tangible record in order to make th past more meaningful to them. For this reason, we have attempted to get pictures of all our donors of awards and trophies, because to our present generation the names Creighton, McLeod, Garner, and other which are perpetuated in our awards, are meaningless. In some cases it was impossible to get a picture of the donor; for example, with Miss Rogers, although she is seen in group pictures we found the face was too indistinct to be reproduced in an individual picture. Other pictures of donors were reproduced from newspaper clippings so they are not as good as they might be.

We wish to thank all those who sent us pictures and information, those who loaned us photographs, those who were bothered by our endless searching for pictures and facts.

We made the greatest effort to name everyone in the old pictures because we thought it would be a more valuable record. We wish to thank all those who helped us with the identification. If we have erred in any names we apologize. In naming large groups we did this by rows if possible; if when the rows weren't straight we tried to straighten them. THere were many times when a family resemblance continued through a couple of generations but we hope we haven't given any girl her aunty's name.

In presenting our history it was impossible to separate the history of the school from that of the town after all it was not a history of a building but rather a history of people we were writing. We have included in our book some of the families who have been Estevan citizens for four generations. In each case, of course, one or two generations have attended our school. These we felt were the people who had the greatest interest in our school, this is their school. They were the pioneers and early citizens who made our school what it is today.

We are grateful to the students who helped with our searches. We are particularly indebted to the skilful assistance of Estevan's photographer, Jack Jenish, who reproduced old pictures, reconstructed broken ones, and from other old pictures he removed evidences such as mustaches and spectacles which small children had added as decorative touches.

We hope this book will please you, that it will recall many fond memories, and that it will be a worthwhile souvenir. Although we presented only facts and pictures here, we did recall many interesting stories in doing this research; and of course they aren't included here since that would have beeen impossible or even imprudent. (We intend to write a sequel, at a later date, in a distant land, and under an assumed name and in that book we will include all the history not recorded this time).

Photo shows H.E. McKenzie (the contractor) and Mrs. McKenzie.

This web version was digitized by Angela Mennie on 10February2006 from the original source which can be found at the Estevan Public Library.

Additional content about Estevan is welcome. If you have photos, stories, or other content which we may consider for inclusion with the History of Estevan, please contact us at the Library 306-636-1620.