Following in family footsteps

Pictured are (back row, from left) Ruby Nevill (9),  Ryley Park (10), Tain Roberts (11) and Noah...
Pictured are (back row, from left) Ruby Nevill (9), Ryley Park (10), Tain Roberts (11) and Noah Hinton (10); (middle, from left) Claudia Park (8), Selene Roberts (9), Jesse Samuel (9) and Cade Roberts (7); (front) William Hinton (5) and Codi Samuel (6). Absent are Maddison and Jamie Hill. Photo by Lynda Gray
A century and a-half of education at Alexandra Primary School and Alexandra Districts High School is being marked at Easter and the jubilee organisers are urging locals to show their support.

''It seems to be the locals who don't get around to registering and coming along and I know in the last few reunions at Dunstan High and Alexandra Primary those who attended from out-of-town were a bit disappointed some of the locals didn't come along,'' jubilee committee chairman Rory McLellan said yesterday.

The event on April 3-4 will celebrate 150 years of education at the two schools. Alexandra School began in a one-room stone building, behind what is now the Criterion Hotel.

After outgrowing that site, a new stone building was constructed across the road from the present primary school in the late 1870s or early 1880s.

In 1912, the school was granted ''district high school'' status and by 1961, it was one of the biggest schools in Otago with 600 primary and 230 secondary school pupils, as well as 25 teachers.

After Dunstan High opened in 1962 and The Terrace School in 1965, Alexandra reverted to being a primary-only school.

The school now has a roll of about 200. Among them are two fifth-generation pupils - Ryley and Claudia Park, and 10 fourth-generation pupils - Ruby Nevill, Cade, Tain and Selene Roberts, Noah and William Hinton, Jesse and Codi Samuel, Maddison and Jamie Hill.

Ryley and Claudia's great-great-grandmother, Annie McDonnell (nee Sanders), attended Alexandra School in the late 1890s and her daughter, Evelyn Carey, attended Galloway School then Alexandra Districts High in the 1930s.

Mrs Carey's son, Raymond, was a pupil at Alexandra primary and the districts high school from 1949 to 1959 and his daughter, Sharyn - Ryley and Claudia's mother - attended the primary school from 1979 to 1987.

The jubilee events include a get-together on Friday, April 3, followed by an afternoon of activities at the school on Saturday.

A function will be held that evening in the Alexandra Community Centre.

For further information, or to register for the jubilee, log in to http://www.alexandraprimaryjubilee.com/

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