Richard Neff is heading into retirement knowing a project he started a year ago at Centre Wellington District High School is done and will be enjoyed for years to come.
Neff has been at CWDHS for 23 years and in two different school buildings. He has taught music, history, geography, food basics, media and English, and is currently working in the school library.
Last year he decided something had to be done to get the history of the school into a more prominent place than old file drawers in fast-becoming-musty side rooms off the library. The artifacts were hiding the treasures of the school’s history – a long one – and he wanted it in the open for all to see.
Neff found a program from the day the school opened, with a drawing of Fergus’ first school on the cover. Two programs, in fact, which have allowed him to display all four panels on the wall at the entrance to the current school, along with many photos and mementoes that help document the history not only of the school but also of Fergus. There is even a key presented at the grand opening of the high school at Belsyde Avenue and Tower Street in 1928.
“We still have that key – which has found itself going from drawer to drawer and place to place – in the display case,” he said proudly.
The current building is the third high school, and most of the people familiar with the old school at Belsyde Avenue and Tower Street would be amazed to see the pictures of that school for an Old Boys and Old Girls reunion in 1933. The building is out in the middle of nowhere, with no houses or other buildings nearby.
Neff not only found and displayed documents from the second high school in Fergus, but also the treasures he unearthed and preserved that go back into the late 1800s.
One is from the Education Department Ontario from Toronto, dated March 30, 1878. It is an “extract from the Report of Inspector Marling on his visit to the High School at Fergus on Oct. 23, 1877 and transmitted for the information of the board and school head master. It states: Organization The Junior department has improved since the appointment of a teacher of superior qualifications. The work of the school is judiciously divided between the masters.”
It adds, “The school is doing excellent work; and the results at the Intermediate Examination testify to the character of the teaching. The teachers are zealous and faithful.”
Another is from the Education Department Ontario in Toronto, dated Nov. 20 1879. It is an “extract from the Report of Inspector McLellan on his visit to the High School at Fergus on Nov. 3, 1879.
It states, “Transmitted for the information of the Board and Head Master” and includes spelling mistakes. “Accomodations [sic]: Very good. New (stone) building, three large class rooms, and several smaller ones.
“Organization: The classification is good. Remarks: The school has greatly improved under Mr. Poole – passed 17 pupils at the last Intermediate Examination & 12 at the proceeding [sic] one. Mr. Poole is an excellent teacher – very thorough in his work. Mr. McArdk also does excellent work. The disciplin [sic] & tone of the school are excellent.”
Neff rescued more than old documents, and the entrance to the high school is now decorated with not only those, but a pictorial history of Fergus and surrounding area. It includes a 1929 picture of a high school girls hockey team, with the players standing in front of the school – in their skates. Another is a boys team from the following year.
There is a photo of a commercial stream from the school, with a list of those who fell fighting in World War II.
There are other items. A class ring donated to the school from a woman from British Columbia who’s mother attended the school, plus other memorabilia such as pins.
There are old photos of poultry clubs, pictures of the entire school in front of the Tower and Belsyde school, and activities of students through the years. There are numerous photos from the 1940s, 1950s, and well into the 1960s now on display.
“I’m happy,” Neff said of the work he has completed.
He explained he had the photos done in matte to protect them and he put them in frames suitable for their era. He even has some pictures from the first high school in Fergus, “across the river” near the Presbyterian Church. He said with a smile the photos can provide a sense of history for students who will now be able to see them every time they come in the front door. He has no doubt some of them can find their parents and grandparents on the walls at the entrance.
Plus, he said, “People from the community can come in and find themselves – or their parents, or their friends.”
Neff said when he moved into the new high school built in 2004, he felt the school’s atmosphere had something missing – a sense of history.
He found all the photos and memorabilia and decided to start raising funds a year ago to display it. In one, he has a picture of the James McQueen house, with the school at one end and the post office in between the school and the living quarters.
Neff smiled and said he received a lot of financial help from “the cafeteria fund” and he and several students assembled the photos. He added some once hung in places of honour somewhere because their old frames had screw holes in them, “but where they’ve been, I’m not sure.”
