By Don Lawrence
Picture day is an important tradition for students and parents alike. Parents brainstorm outfit ideas and schedule haircuts, while kids practice their smiles in the mirror. School pictures are important to many kids – after all, they are seen by everyone in the yearbook. You can also give them to your friends and, of course, your parents will hand them out to family members. With that many people seeing the picture, it had better look good!
But the photo above taken on June 19, 1975, at Centennial Road Public School was quite different from your typical picture day. This jubilant shot comes from a Toronto Star article called “School’s Out,” about Scarborough schools. These Grade 6 youngsters were delighted to participate.
The students came as they were, including 11-year-old John Gallop on crutches due to a broken ankle. Combed hair was optional. Notice the CCRA T-shirt at the left of the photo. On the far-left side of the photo wearing sunglasses was Bruce Geddes, the Grade 6 teacher, while Mrs. Ruth Banks, principal at Centennial Road that year, can be seen standing to the right.
On this picture day, students were already excited as the Toronto Star’s photographer instructed them to take something from their desk ready to wave over their heads as they jumped and yelled while bursting out of the school’s front door. They were also happy to be graduating from Grade 6 and about to start summer holidays. Their photo was going to be published in the newspaper for everyone to see, a big deal in those days.
Centennial News was able to speak to two people who were part of the photoshoot 50 years ago. The Grade 6 teacher Bruce Geddes remembers Centennial Road Public School standing alone near the corner of Lawson and Centennial before the modern subdivisions developed.
“The highlight and a big memory for me was leading a committee of teachers at Centennial Road PS to organize a mini-Olympic games in June of 1976 for our annual track and field day,” Bruce said. “The celebration/event was based on the opening ceremonies planned for the Montreal Olympic games that summer.
“We had a supervised torch run by students from the Scarborough Civic Centre on Ellesmere at McCowan to the school playground where we held our ‘games.’ Special guests from the mayor’s office and the Education Centre were invited to speak during the opening ceremony. It was certainly one of the fondest memories I have from my teaching career.”
After two years at Centennial, Bruce continued his teaching career at various Scarborough schools retiring in 2001 from Tom Longboat Jr. PS as principal. He and his family lived in West Rouge for 34 years from 1988 to 2022. His daughters went on to attend Joseph Howe Senior PS and Oliver Mowat CI.
John Gallop, the student on crutches, remembers he was positioned about 10 feet in front of the group who then jumped when they got to him. He was excited to be in the paper and still has a copy in his school day treasures book. John says he has had a nomadic life including living in the Arctic, around Europe, and currently in Eastern Ontario. His kids thought the photo of him in 1975 was “cool.”