St. Albert’s Glenys Bauman remembers what Sturgeon Heights School was like 50 years ago. She was the school’s secretary on Day One, and was on staff there for some 26 years.
“When this was built, Villeneuve Road was mud,” she said, sitting last Wednesday in the school’s library, and there was naught around the school but empty fields.
Fifty years later, and the school still stands strong, now surrounded by homes and packed with the descendants of those first students.
Bauman, 91, was one of the hundreds of St. Albert and Sturgeon County residents at Sturgeon Heights School June 1 to celebrate the school’s 50th anniversary. Guests went on student-led tours, dined at food trucks, reminisced over yearbooks and photos, and took in an alumni volleyball game, all amidst a blizzard of poplar fluff.
Event organizer June Bailey said the school originally planned to hold this celebration last fall closer to the actual anniversary date, but delayed until now due to the pandemic.
Speaking to the crowd in the school’s parking lot, Sturgeon Heights principal Aaron Chute remarked on how the school had a clear line of sight to Bellerose Composite as recently as 25 years ago — now, of course, the view was blocked by many homes. Back when it opened in 1971, Walt Disney World had just opened its doors, and the “Mr. Men” series of children’s books had just reached store shelves.
“The opening of this school is closer to the Great Depression than today!” he noted.
Community hub
The Gazette’s archives show that Sturgeon Heights officially opened Nov. 1, 1971 with some 360 Grade 1 to 9 students and 16 staff under principal Walter Heppler. It cost $730,000 and was the first new school built in the Sturgeon school division since 1959. Its students came from the Cunningham School in Morinville and St. Albert’s Mission Park School (the latter of which was housed in the building by the little white church on Mission Ave.).
Built on land formerly owned and farmed by John and Clara Kluthe, the school had a circular academic wing which could be closed so the public could access the fine arts and gym facilities in the rectangular wing after hours, A Bridge Over Time reports.
Bauman noted that seven of school’s classrooms did not have doors and instead opened directly into the school’s central library, allowing classes to mix. (They added walls and doors later.)
None of the classrooms had windows initially, noted Claudette Hachey, who was part of the school’s first Grade 3 class. This made power outages an interesting experience.
“It would be pitch black in the classroom,” she said, and the teachers would have to hustle students into the central library, which had a skylight.
Bauman recalled how the school was host to a district-wide festival in spring 1972. It was supposed to be outdoors, but it had rained for the previous three days. Students had to slog through several blocks worth of mud from where the buses parked on Villeneuve Road and crammed inside the building for the festivities.
Chute said Sturgeon Heights was now a K-9 school of about 470 students from both St. Albert and Sturgeon County.
“We really are a hub in the community,” he said, with many school families living in the area.
Chute said the school’s original circular core was still intact, although several portables had been tacked onto it over the years. It has also gained a home economics lab, an outdoor classroom, a sports academy, and this fall would launch a brand-new STEAM academy program.
“It doesn’t matter that this place is old,” Chute said.
“It’s still innovative and is still creating successful kids.”
Sturgeon Heights School is at 50 Hogan Road.
