To celebrate turning 50 this year, Hawkerโs Belconnen High School is rounding up all their yearbooks dating back to 1971.
The effort has been led by passionate former principal, Dennis Flannery; late in 2020, a call went out to the schoolโs community to help bring a full set together.
โIโm a hoarder myself,โ he smiled. โIโve got a yearbook from most schools Iโve been at over the years, that was the driving force.โ
Mr Flannery, Belconnen High principal from 1998 to 2005, said he was first inspired to go through the schoolโs archives after meeting with current principal, Rebecca Pearce.
โI went up to the school and started going through the boxes and boxes of archives, trying to make some sense of those,โ he said.
โThen I said really, we should get a set of yearbooks, 1971 to 2020; they will tell a story.
โThe school had some, I had some, my kids had some โฆ but we found we were about 20 short.โ
Since spreading the word, the number of missing yearbooks has come down to seven as of 30 March, with books from 1977, 1992, 1995, 1996, 2011, 2012 and 2014 still on the wish list.
Theyโve managed to acquire the schoolโs first yearbooks; with 1972 on hand and 1971 on the way.
Mr Flannery described the vintage copies as โgoldโ.
โItโs just interesting looking at the different yearbooks, and how theyโve changed,โ he said.
The school is currently scanning the collection of yearbooks so they can be digitised and made available via the schoolโs website.
โItโs so people can look through and have all the old memories flood back,โ Mr Flannery said.
Chasing down the missing yearbooks has sent him down a rabbit hole of looking up and contacting previous principals, deputies, other faculty members and alumni.
Heโs uncovered former students in an array of impressive jobs including ANU professors, a Coca-Cola executive, a New York-based luxury jeweller, and a United Nations staffer.
โI just found all these fascinating people,โ he said.
Without anything else confirmed, Mr Flannery said other plans to celebrate the half century include some school tours for past students through the newly renovated campus.
โItโs reconnecting people in the past with the school in the present,โ he said.
Belconnen High School is also investigating ways to have current students connect with various alumni; and an open day in September is being planned to act as the โofficial culminationโ of celebrations.
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