A mourning and celebration

Students and teachers bustle together to take a celebratory photo. Photos: Contributed.

Widgee State School has a long and varied history. The cultural, social and historical narrative of a town and school is directly shaped by its people and it is both interesting and important to acknowledge who has come before us, who is here in the present and where we are going into the future. When Widgee SS opened in 1892, sixteen students started on the first day. Annually, the school held a picnic where local ladies would serve fruit, cake, sandwiches and boiled lollies. The days’ program included sports, races, games of cricket and rounders. Mums and Dads would race, and school awards and books would be presented. There was often a dance at night where children were dismissed at 5pm while the parents danced until daylight the next morning!In those days, children walked or rode horses to school. One family, the Shanahan’s had five creek crossings and travelled eight kilometres each way to school. If it rained heavily, the Shanahan family were unable to get home and would billet themselves out with the neighbours. Widgee Provisional School became Widgee State School in 1909. Late in 1922, the school was allocated approximately ten across of land where the school is now located. Currently, we have 52 students at our little school. Our staff P & C have an exceptional level of commitment to our students and our community. This is evident with the upcoming Rodeo in a few weeks which is all in the aid of creating fabulous improvements to create an outdoor learning centre in what we affectionately call, ‘the horse paddock.’ School is the best time of life where friends and connections are made, and Widgee State School has a long and rich history of both. Last week we were informed of the sudden passing of Mr Robert Lonergan who was the former principal at Widgee State School for 12 years. His contribution to the school, fire brigade and wider community needs to be recognised and at our school birthday celebration, we raised our school flag to half-mast out of respect. We send our thoughts and condolences to Mr Lonergan’s family, friends and past students. When we made plans at the beginning of the year for our 130th birthday celebration, there was a directive to minimise human traffic into schools due to the pandemic. We thought a school picnic seemed fitting. In addition to this, our students have created a short documentary titled, ‘The living legends of Widgee,’ which will be available from our school website in the near future. Beautiful bookmarks depicting our fabulous new school mural have been created as a souvenir to mark our 130th birthday. These are available from Widgee SS front office. To the parents and community, thank you for trusting us with the education of your children. We hope to see you all the Widgee PRO Rodeo on 20 August!