Forest Glen Public School celebrating 50th anniversary of first three graduating classes

By Emily Stewart

The first-ever graduating class of Forest Glen Public School will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in a reunion this June, but a year after the monumental occasion.

“It kind of came and went without us really noticing it, and then a friend of mine who had also gone to school with us had mentioned that it was coming up and we looked it up and it had already happened, so we're actually a year late in putting this together,” said organizer Kenneth Brown.

Forest Glen Public School alumni who graduated in either 1975, 1976 or 1977 are invited to attend the 50th reunion at the New Hamburg Legion Hall at 65 Boullee St. on June 6 from 1-5 p.m. Brown is looking forward to reconnecting with his classmates in-person for the first time in several years.

“We've been doing a lot of Facebook things trying to get people together. After 50 years, it's virtually impossible and so many people have changed their names and moved three or four times and that sort of thing. It’s been a real challenge,” he said. “So, I'm looking forward to it, and I know an awful lot of other people are, too, with simply reconnecting and figuring out where everybody's been and what they've been doing."

Brown said that while he grew up with his classmates throughout childhood, his time at Forest Glen Public School was quite short and with few memories. The school wasn’t ready in early September of his graduating year and didn’t open until late 1974.

“It was interesting because what they had to do was more or less at the last minute they broke up the graduating classes into different groups and sent them to different schools, and then we blended within their population for that period of time,” Brown said.

The first Forest Glen Public School graduating class spent just six months at the school. Brown is hoping to connect with more alumni. Between 120 to 125 people were contacted out of the 215 from the graduating classes.

"Once we figured out who these people were and we said, 'Hey, it's such and such' and it was you’re off to the races as far as people saying 'Oh, I remember that and I remember this and that's a blast from the past,' and so on and so forth. We're really looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Brown said.

Any former students or staff interested in being part of the reunion can either send an email to kbphotoent@aol.com, call or text 226-930-4466, or reach out to the Forest Glen PS (New Hamburg) 2026 Reunion Facebook page.