Catholic Schools History - CARW2018
With this years CARW having a ‘Back to Geo-School’ theme, we thought we would school everyone with some actual schools! These caches will give you some history on some of the schools in the Strathcona County / Sherwood Park area. We hope you enjoy being schooled!
At the opening of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Parish Priest Father Kenneth Kearns stated, "You never have a Parish unless you have a separate school." Inspired by these words, a meeting was held in Moe Salm's living room, where it was decided to form a school district. An almost unanimous vote by parishioners in November 1962 confirmed the formation of the Salisbury Roman Catholic School District (later changed to Sherwood Park Catholic Separate School District, and then to Elk Island Catholic Separate Regional Division). Three trustees were elected: Dan Engel, Moe Salm and Roland Boisvert.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help School (OLPH) was built in just five months at a cost of just $15 a square foot! This example of "an efficient school building program" was brought to the floor of the Alberta Legislature. In September 1963, Sister Maureen Ryan, the school principal, welcomed 240 students in grades one through nine. The six-room school expanded three times over the years in response to increases in attendance: in 1964, 1966 and 1979.
The first students at OLPH wore uniforms; the girls wore blue tunics, white blouses and red ties and the boys wore red shirts and blue corduroy pants. The uniforms were phased out after a few years.
Oleh Cherkawski, a Sherwood Park resident since 1956, sent his children to the Salisbury Rural School and the Campbelltown school until OLPH opened. He recalls that his older children traveled to St. Mary's and Austin O'Brien schools in Edmonton since there was no Catholic high school in Sherwood Park. His younger children, however, attended Archbishop Jordan High School (ABJ), after it opened in 1969.
The high school had an initial enrolment of 264 students in Grades seven to ten, eventually expanding to include grades eleven and twelve. There were 57 students in the first graduating class of 1972, compared to about 250 in 2006.
In 2013 Archbishop Jordan High School (ABJ) a new larger building to accommodate up to 1,400 students was built.
This CARW2018 cache will be published prior to the CARW event.
Please remember that caches cannot be hunted until 9am Saturday March 3rd
Should you find this cache prior, it will not count for the event, and FTF points are only valid as of 9am March 3rd.
There are a total of 15 caches in this series. Some of the traditional caches are feeder caches, and will end up providing the final coordinates for the puzzle cache:
Colchester School - CARW2018
Remember to jot down these special numbers to help you find the last one in this series.
The numbers may be in the container, or ON the host.