2017
One of the highlights at the Commemorative event in January was the magnificent singing of Fuad Sawyer who “brought the house down” with his version of Nessum Dorma. It was also the first time at an official event that the choir sang the school anthem. Stage performances took place against Sydney Petersen’s magnificent banner backdrop and floral arrangements. Geoff Jacobs, the Alumni Association chairperson, presented an excellent speech at the traditional Thanksgiving service in March. The event was preceded by a photographic exhibition in the foyer of the Joseph Stone Auditorium. Refreshments were sponsored by the Alumni group of 1968-1972. It had been a pleasure and blessing to meet this very generous group of ex-students with Garnet Gabriels as their driving force.
In continuing with our tradition of cultural performances, our current students made us feel very proud. As part of our ongoing 70th celebrations, our drama and dance group presented Romeo and Juliet at the Baxter Theatre in May and also performed a hip hop dance at Artscape in August.. The West End jazz club in Rylands was once again the venue for an Athlone High celebration and fundraising event. The theme for the occasion was Christmas in July and lots of hard work by the Alumni executive went into organizing the event.
Soccer, the beautiful game, had to feature amidst all our other projects. The boys showed us their ball skills and we were entertained to thrilling soccer during a great tournament. Two other winter sports which are blossoming at the school are basketball and rugby and in our 70th year we are proud of the achievements of our teams who are well-coached and managed by Neal Bekkers (basketball) and Laurian Johannes and Natasha Groenewald (rugby).
Art took centre stage at Athlone this year. The Peter Clarke Art Centre in Newlands offered a space for thirty of our students to attend visual art lessons twelve times this year. Their work will be exhibited at the Reunion Open Day in October. Dr Rod Sauls, yet another exstudent, has been an inspiration as he has brought out the artist in each of the grade 11 pupils involved in Developmental Art. The grade 11 students’ art work would be exhibited at the famous Michaelis School of Fine Art in late September.
So as the year 2017 draws to a close, the 70th anniversary celebrations are not over yet. Still to take place at the time of writing this chapter are the Afternoon Tea, the Production of Cold Case at Kaleidoscope, the Dinner/ Dance at the Dulcie September Hall and of course the reunion at school where the publication on the history of Athlone High will be launched.