By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — Just as they pledged, Davidson School’s class of 2015 has already made history, as the smallest graduating class the school has seen in almost 60 years.

The class — with a total of seven students, all girls — held its graduation exercises in the school gymnasium on Saturday, May 16, before a packed house of friends, family, teachers and classmates.

But as guest speaker Karen McConnell said during the ceremony, “You ladies have left a mark far larger than the number of you.”

Expressing disbelief that the seven students, once awkward Grade 7 students struggling with their lockers, were now finished at Davidson School and on their way to adulthood, McConnell shared memories of her time teaching and coaching the girls, and left them with some sincere advice.

“You have one life, don’t play it safe,” she said. “What does your gut tell you? Follow your gut, it’s smarter than your head most of the time.”

Principal Jason Low also addressed the students, offering 10 pieces of advice he had learned over the years, and thanking those in the audience for taking the time to attend despite the busyness of the season.

“I know that seeding time is precious in our unpredictable part of the world and is crucial in ensuring a bountiful harvest,” he said. “As we sit here tonight, I think we are celebrating the greatest harvest you will ever have.”

Teacher Karielle Willner served as master of ceremonies for the 90-minute program, while Paulette Killoh led the processional, introducing each student as they entered and accepted their diplomas from vice-principal Cathy Rettger and Sun West School Division trustee John Collins.

As noted by Killoh, the class of 2015 was the smallest class Davidson School has had since 1957, when six students graduated.

Following the singing of “O Canada,” graduate Brooklyn Read introduced McConnell as the guest speaker. Her speech was followed by the principal’s remarks.

Awards and scholarships were presented by Davidson School Community Council chair Marcia McIvor, treasurer Denise Brecht and other community members.

Katelyn Riecken represented her class to pass the school colours to Grade 11 student Ben Nykiforuk, carrying on a decades-long tradition.

Elise McJannet, selected as the class valedictorian, reflected on the students’ time together. Six of the girls had been together since Kindergarten, while Paige Travers from Loreburn joined them in Grade 11.

“We are more like family than just classmates,” said McJannet, expressing her classmates’ mixed feelings on graduating. “We are anxious to explore new things, yet we are hesitant.”

She also recognized that the 13 years they spent together had presented their challenges, noting, “It’s had its share of bumps and ruts, but we’ve always been there to pick each other up and move forward.”

Referring to the class theme — “We’ll Make H15tory” — McJannet said it didn’t necessarily mean being recognized by the world, but rather being known “by the people we care about.”

Brooklyn Read and Liana Farrell provided a look into the future with their predictions for their classmates and themselves. A slideshow of old photos set to music, put together by Quinlyn Johnson and Elise McJannet, was well received by the audience.

Johnson and Travers offered acknowledgements towards the end of the ceremony, followed by the recessional and grand march, and finally a social.

The ceremony followed a banquet at Davidson Town Hall, emceed by Blair Frederickson, featuring toasts to both the parents and the grads, and the presentation of academic awards by vice-principal Cathy Rettger and other school staff.

For the complete story, including the list of awards presented, please pick up a copy of the May 25 edition of The Davidson Leader.

By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — They may have looked a little different on the surface, but underneath the grey hair and wrinkles, it was the same old class of 1965.

Shirley Blenkin, one of the organizers for the group’s 50-year reunion on Saturday, May 16, said that when the former classmates met up at Davidson School, they had some trouble recognizing each other.

“We didn’t have name tags on” yet, she said. “People just didn’t know who was who.”

“It was fun to try and figure people out,” said Marilyn Resler (nee Sarich). “There was just so many you couldn’t recognize . . . and then there was that big ‘ah-ha.’”

After the ice was broken, the group enjoyed an afternoon of reminiscing and getting reacquainted for their first reunion in three decades. Blenkin and Irene Frier organized the gathering over the course of a year.

Out of the class of 55 students who graduated from Davidson High School in the spring of 1965, 27 returned to town for the reunion. Including spouses and guests, about 40 were in attendance for supper.

The group met on Saturday afternoon at the school for a tour, guided by current principal Jason Low. They then migrated to the Davidson Golf and Country Club for dinner, enjoying a meal at the clubhouse.

Though they had the option of playing golf, Blenkin said, “they just all got busy visiting and never even thought about it anymore.”

Copies of the group’s black-and-white graduation photo were on display, while some had also brought their yearbooks, leaving them on the tables to solicit signatures.

Their Grade 5 teacher, Yvonne Doell, joined the class for supper. Blenkin said they also learned Saturday that their former principal, Ray Allison, died Friday night in Saskatoon.

Allison, a native of Aylesbury, served for 14 years as principal in Evasham, Creelman, Lucky Lake and Davidson, before joining the Biggar School Unit as superintendent of schools in 1965, according to his obituary in the StarPhoenix.

After half a century, Blenkin said most of her former classmates are scattered across Canada and the United States, while eight still reside in the district.

Some came from Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Prince Albert and Melfort, but others further away had to send their regrets.

“It gets difficult to come that distance for supper and a little visit,” she said, adding that others were out seeding and couldn’t get away. “It’s hard to plan a time that suits everyone.”

Marilyn Resler and her husband Fred came the furthest, travelling 1,300 kilometres one way from Peachland, B.C., south of Kelowna.

“Things have changed since I’ve been here,” she said of the town, adding that they made the trip out to visit family in Saskatoon and Humboldt and were able to attend the reunion as a bonus.

Resler said she was having fun and enjoyed coming back to Davidson, adding, “It’s sort of like ‘once a friend, always a friend.’”

In recognition of the class of 2015 — which had its graduation exercises the same night as the reunion — the former classmates bought and signed cards of congratulation for each graduate.

John B. McJannet, one of the ’65 graduates, is the grandfather of ’15 grad Elise McJannet, while Jim Stone is the great-uncle of Liana Farrell.

Seven members of the class of 1965 have since died: Maureen Brown (nee Cammer), Ian Findlay, Dale Frier, Julius LePoudre, Laurie Lockwood, Wayne Low and Gerald Zdunich.

The class also met for reunions in 1975 and 1985; Blenkin recalled that the 10-year reunion drew the largest crowd.

By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — As he spoke last week, Gerrid Gust was behind the wheel of a four-wheel-drive tractor valued at upwards of half a million dollars.

With the stakes involved in modern farming, Gust and farmers like him depend on experienced workers from other countries to make it through the season.

But changes to Canada’s labour exchange programs have made those workers increasingly hard to come by, forcing some farmers to make do with a short staff.

“I don’t want to put just anybody up the street on it,” he said Wednesday. “They seem to want to force us to use unskilled workers that have never been on a farm before, never seen a tractor before.”

Gust, who farms east of Davidson with his family, said they’ve been bringing in summer workers from Australia for almost 20 years through International Experience Canada (IEC), under the “Working Holiday” category.

Due to the recent drama over Canada’s situation with temporary foreign workers (TFWs), some of the timelines for the IEC programs have changed, leaving the Gusts to cope with a reduced number of workers.

Ordinarily, the program would allow applications beginning Jan. 1, but this year that date was bumped to somewhere in mid-February.

In reality, Gust said, it was closer to March 10 before applications were accepted, and with a six-week processing time, the situation has made it difficult to get paperwork completed in a timely manner.

Gust said his family currently has five labourers here with their paperwork in order, while one additional labourer is in the country but still holidaying since his paperwork is incomplete.

“He can’t get the proper entry visa,” explained Gust. “He can travel around Canada but he can’t work.”

He also mentioned a friend in southern Saskatchewan who needed to bring in a worker for calving, but because of the altered timeline, “they just couldn’t do it.” Gust said the situation is similar for farmers across western Canada.

Gust said the family has contacted both the federal and provincial ministries of agriculture, as well as local MLAs, and while they were “sympathetic and helpful,” little has been accomplished.

He said the problem appears to lie with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC); he hasn’t been able to reach them by phone, and emails have met with no reply.

Gust said he’s tried every organization he could think of, from the Grain Growers of Canada to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, but to no avail, leaving them to deal with the reality of a smaller crew.

“We’re just making do,” he said. “I wouldn’t say we’re working longer hours, we’re just getting less done than we’d optimally like to do.”

For now, Gust said he is continually trying to make his voice heard, to express the urgency of the situation for farmers and to reach out to groups like the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council.

Remi Lariviere, a media relations official for CIC, explained in an email to the Leader that the IEC is a bilateral exchange program, reciprocal in nature, that facilitates work experience opportunities for Canadians in 32 countries around the world.

“Putting more emphasis on jobs for Canadians first and addressing youth unemployment was the guiding principle for the creation of the International Mobility Program in the summer of 2014,” he wrote.

He also explained that the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) allows employers to hire TFWs when Canadian citizens or permanent residents are not available to fill jobs.

For the full story, please pick up a copy of The Davidson Leader’s May 18 edition.

By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — Local music students combined piano and vocal performances in a recent recital held at Davidson’s Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The recital, held Friday, May 8, showcased the efforts of the students of voice teacher Cheryl Dolan and piano teacher Pearl Unger, with about 10 performers in total and about 50 audience members in attendance.

The recital ran for just over an hour; the song selections ran the gamut from simple children’s ditties and pop songs to classical pieces and musical theatre.

Throughout the evening, the performances moved back and forth between the stage and the piano. Unger accompanied the voice students on the piano.

Among the show’s opening performances was a quartet consisting of Dolan and students Katherine Cool, Ayla Sampson and soloist Geena Heinrich, singing “Poor Wandering One” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.

The three students later returned to the stage as a trio, singing the title song from Fiddler on the Roof.

They were followed by Cheryl Dolan’s husband Dale, who took the stage, claiming he wanted to join the fun, in what was presented as a spontaneous outburst. He then took on the role of Tevye in “If I Were A Rich Man,” while Unger continued to play along without missing a beat.

The audience also heard solo vocal performances by Sampson, Cool and Heinrich, as well as nine-year-old Marissa Cammer. Cool sang the title song from The Sound of Music, while Sampson performed another track from the same show, My Favorite Things.

The audience heard piano performances by Ayla Sampson, Farrah Low, Max German, Jessy Ulmer, Baylie White and Megan Cammer, the latter of whom performed a duet with her sister Marissa on “The Ants Go Marching One by One.”

White played the title song from Beauty and the Beast, while Sampson played the evening’s only rock song: “Clocks,” by the British band Coldplay.

As the evening wound down, the quartet took the stage, joined by Marissa Cammer, to sing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from the film Mary Poppins, inviting the audience to join in. The recital closed with a piano performance by Marissa Cammer, playing “Freddie the Frog.”

Refreshments were served following the recital.

By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — Passing through town last week, Dick and Myrlene Currie decided to stop by the Davidson cemetery to pay their respects, but they weren’t impressed with what they found.

Visiting the grave of Dick’s sister, the late Eileen Russell, they found the Russell family plot in disarray, with a large, uneven mound of dirt over one recently-dug grave, and various family headstones scattered about.

“The stones look like vandals have been in the plot,” said Myrlene, who came with her husband to the Leader office to voice their concerns on Tuesday.

The Curries, who live in Carman, Man., said much of the cemetery was in poor shape, as though there had been little or no maintenance carried out.

“These are your pioneers that built up the town, and you have no respect for them,” said Myrlene. “It looks like it, anyway.”

She said they have visited in past years and found the situation has only deteriorated since then, while letters to the town and visits to the town office have met with no response or action.

“It hasn’t changed, it’s gotten worse,” said Dick. “The whole cemetery is not well kept.”

A followup visit to the cemetery on Wednesday revealed that some areas were in dire need of attention, particularly the Russell family plot.

While the grass was healthy and trimmed, some newer graves had been left with a large mound of dirt on top — in at least one case, tall enough to block the view of the headstone — while others showed evidence that the ground underneath had sunken in after the caskets had been laid.

A couple of stones were toppled or out of place, while the circular gravel road through the older section of the cemetery suffered from severe ruts, leaving drivers vulnerable to bottoming out.

Town administrator Gary Edom acknowledged the difficulty of keeping the cemetery maintained, especially with the high levels of moisture seen at springtime over the last few years.

“It can be hard to keep up things depending on the weather,” he said, noting that last year was especially damp, forcing the town to organize a volunteer work bee to clean the site up somewhat.

“This year, we hope to have enough staff and enough equipment to keep up with it,” Edom added, also granting that families have a reasonable expectation that the site be maintained properly.

While the town’s public works department looks after the cemetery site itself, caring for the grave markers is the responsibility of the family of the deceased. However, Edom said that in practice, those tasks often fall to the town.

Many of the older graves show the wear and tear that has accumulated over the years, including the formation of moss, and damage to burial vaults placed at ground level.

Mayor Clayton Schneider said he had not heard of any recent complaints about the Davidson cemetery, though he had recently inquired with the public works department as to whether a work bee was necessary this year.

“As far as I know, I haven’t heard anything about it yet,” he said, adding that he would bring the matter up again. “If there is (anything wrong), I’ll definitely get to the bottom of it.”

Other municipalities in the area have employed different methods to keep their cemeteries in good condition.

For instance, administrator Carman Fowler said the village of Kenaston has committees in place for both the public and Catholic cemetery, with caretakers hired over the summer to maintain the sites.

Similarly, Craik administrator Sarah Wells said the town hires a summer caretaker to look after the cemetery, cutting grass and doing other odd jobs, while other town employees look after the roads.