General News
22 July, 2024
Times Gone By
- from Rainbow Archives and Historical Society's Peter Ralph
Very few of us have seen the heritage component of the Albert Street school buildings from the high viewpoint featured on the front page of last week’s Argus.
Just close your eyes, and for a moment imagine what those surviving old walls might say if they could talk.
I then thought it would be a great idea to ferret through our photographic files and show you what the solid and dignified grand old lady looked like in her heyday, or more correctly during her first year of life, 1920.
The foundation stone had been trowelled into place at the main entrance on the left by Cr G. R. Riby on November 14 the previous year.
We saw the very trowel he used at the Centenary of District Secondary Education Celebrations, just prior to Covid, some five years ago.
As the photo on page one (from Wyn Sault) shows, the areas surrounding the new building are in the early stages of development, with the temporary fence lounging about at all angles, a couple of scruffy trees needing attention and nature-strip rubbish requiring a brisk clean up.
But the teachers and students had already been hard at work, clearing, levelling, stringing, cultivating and labelling their agricultural plots in the right foreground.
If you look closely, you’ll see Yurunga in the background, just to the right of the building.
At the far left are two cows, the black one very comfortable under the verandah near the Headmaster’s Office.
I’m not sure that they were a part of the agricultural curriculum though.
We have another photo in the Archives from Dexter West.
Taken a bit later on in 1920, it shows the students proudly displaying an amazing variety of flourishing produce on the go - including peanuts!
In a segment on that year’s Show, the Rainbow Argus of October 22 notes, "An exhibit from the experimental plots at the local Higher Elementary School (entered for exhibition only) was highly interesting to the man on the land.”
The early years of the school were extremely busy under Mr R. A. Francis, the school also having a high profile at state level.
The official opening by the Minister for Public Instruction Sir Alexander Peacock was on April 29 1921, and the same year, teacher Terry McKenna ran second in the prestigious Stawell Gift.
On August 8 1922, educationist Mr E. I. Leach came to open the Jubilee 50 Years of Free Education celebrations, and Rainbow hosted the regional festivities, demonstrating the district’s extraordinary hospitality at its best.
The detailed report by the Argus was full of praise for the efficiency and scope of the work done by the school in coordinating this major event.
Maybe the venerable lofty walls would recall those magical days, or perhaps the highlights of the next century and a bit.
They might now also feel just that little bit lonely for a while.