Alumni reunion hosted at Lisgar Collegiate Institute for 175th anniversary

By Farah Ibrahim

The only school in Ottawa older than the city itself is celebrating its 175th anniversary this spring with an alumni reunion nearly two years in the making.

Lisgar Collegiate Institute is planning to open its doors on the weekend of May 4-6 for the historic school’s first gathering of former students in 15 years.

The last time the school held an alumni reunion was in 2004, when nearly 2,000 Lisgar graduates attended LCI’s 160th birthday party.

The reunion will include a blue-and-grey pub night (honouring the school’s colours) as well as a gala dinner and dance at the Shaw Centre.

Reunion weekend will also feature an athletic ceremony celebrating renowned Lisgar graduate and hockey legend Brian Kilrea, a former NHLer who is being inducted into Lisgar’s Wall of Fame for his success as the longtime coach of the Memorial Cup-winning Ottawa 67’s.

Lisgar Alumni Association member Elizabeth Hale, organizer of the event, said the anniversary reunion will be a special time for the school.

Reunions are the only time former graduates and staff get together, she said, and for some former students it will have been well over 15 years since they last walked the halls of the school.

“We have alumni from every graduating year from 1958 to 2017,” said Hale. “And the earliest graduating year represented so far is 1944.”

Lisgar Collegiate Institute was founded in 1843, making the school an integral part of Ottawa’s history.

“We were a school before Canada was a nation — before Ottawa was a city. There are images of Bytown that show Lisgar on the farthest edge of the town surrounded by farm land,” Hale said.

Shona Moreau, a Class of 2015 graduate, said the history behind Lisgar was one of her favorite things about attending the school.

“I think a very cool aspect of Lisgar is its feel. There are not many schools out there that have that Hogwart-esque appeal,” she said. “Lisgar just oozes academia and history.”

Moreau said she believes the event will be a success because she has never attended a Lisgar event that she didn’t enjoy. “I pretty much breathed Lisgar when I was attending,” she said.

Fares Dweiri, who was a student in Moreau’s graduating class, said he prefers university life to his high school days. But he still wished Lisgar well.

“I hope this event raises awareness of Lisgar’s presence in the downtown core and the Ottawa community as a whole, as it has been there for the last 175 years,” he said.

Yoshuna Chan, who left the school in 2016, said the event will give her a chance to see what other alumni have been up to. “I’d be curious to see what other alumni are like and what they are doing in their careers after attending Lisgar,” Chan said. “I think the event will be successful. I’m expecting to meet a few alumni, perhaps some who are politically or financially successful,” she said.

The reunion weekend will be a fundraiser for the school, Hale said. This year, the Lisgar Alumni Association hopes to achieve a goal of $100,000 in order to improve the auditorium’s facilities, which date back to the 1950s.

“The curtains are threadbare and the sound system cannot handle today’s technology,” said Hale.