Students at Ponoka Secondary Campus (PSC) went all out to ensure Canadian soldiers were remembered last week.
The entire school held its Remembrance Day ceremony Wednesday, Nov. 5 with members of the Ponoka Legion, Mayor Rick Bonnett and the Ponoka Air Cadets as honoured guests. Students were presented with an account of last year’s Broncs World Tour by Jordan Vold, who said the trip was quite memorable, recalling being brought to tears at one ceremony on the trip.
The ceremony also featured a dramatic video, compiled and edited by two students — Hannah Allin and Anastasia Clarke. They were able to bring video from past wars and honour fallen veterans up to the most recent wars that Canadians have taken part in.
Social studies teacher Ron Labrie said the ceremony was one that students put a lot of effort into. This year’s Hall of Valor inductee was Gilbert Ehrman, a Second World War veteran, who died on May 23 in 1944.
Labrie had hoped Erhman’s niece, Brenda Hardy, who helped with students’ research, could have made it to the ceremony, but her health prevented her from coming.
Hardy sent a letter to the school that was read during the ceremony explaining how the researched helped her family.
“Your research of my Uncle Private Gilbert Ehrman was done with impeccable taste and caring,” she wrote.
A visit to Ehrman’s grave was included in last year’s Broncs World Tour trip and Hardy thanked Virginia Harvey, Clinton Rodney and Ashton Sandin for delving into Ehrman’s history.
Labrie said this was the only soldier researched so far, as part of the Cenotaph Project, that students had trouble finding information on. “Based on this project that we’ve done at the school, their family’s closer together now,” he added.
During the moment of silence, Labrie said it was so quiet one could hear a pin drop.
“I think that exemplifies what we have created together and I’m just proud of that,” said Labrie.
Volunteers with the Air Cadets stood vigil in the Hall of Valor after the ceremony. He suggested the ceremony helps fuel the fire of the Cenotaph Project and the Broncs World Tour.