A Keoma-area family’s uninterrupted attendance at Kathyrn School will come to a close this spring.
Three generations of the Jackson/Harms family have attended the school, with at least one member enrolled as a student there for nearly half a century. The streak is finally at an end, however, as Grade 8 student Mikayla Harms will depart Kathyrn to attend Beiseker Community School in the fall.
“It's very cool that my family has been going to Kathyrn for around 50 years,” Harms said. “It is sad that my family's time at Kathyrn will end with me. However, I am excited to start a new chapter in my life and see what opportunities await me.”
Harms is the daughter of Deanna Harms (neé Jackson), who is currently a Grade 1 teacher at Beiseker Community School. According to Deanna, the family’s involvement with Kathyrn School dates back to 1951, when her mother Gail Jackson (neé Wade) enrolled at the school. Jackson spent the next 12 years as a student there, graduating in 1963. Deanna said her mother’s cousins Jack and Dora Wade also went to the school.
A nine-year gap followed before Brian Jackson – Deanna’s brother – started kindergarten at Kathyrn School in 1972. Since then, according to principal Dave Banderk, there has continuously been someone with either the Harms or Jackson surname at the school.
“The cool thing about this, at Kathyrn, there are actually five or six families that have a similar story,” he said. “That just doesn’t happen in Rocky View [School division] very much anymore. It’s one example of a number of different families that have gone to Kathyrn for three or four generations.”
According to Deanna, the Jacksons live on a farm near Dalroy – east of Highway 9 – while the Harms live a 10-minute drive north of there, in Keoma.
For some members of the family, involvement with the school continued after graduation. Gail Jackson worked at Kathyrn School for 29 years and continues to volunteer at the school whenever her health permits.
“[The school's] relationship to the community is one of Kathyrn’s strongest qualities,” Banderk said. “Obviously, those families’ interconnections to the school [play a role in that].
“Kathyrn is more than just a school – it’s a meeting place for those families. When the families come in for Christmas plays or concerts, they will often go over and look at pictures of their grandparents and their parents on the walls. It really permeates the feeling of the culture of the school.”
Harms said her fondest memories from Kathyrn include organizing student leadership activities and attending conferences. Another highlight of her time there was when her grandfather volunteered for the school's annual walk-a-thon.
She added the Jackson/Harms connection to the school has strengthened the family's bond.
“As a family, we sometimes share different stories about our time at Kathyrn School,” she said. “We share about certain stories and it is nice to look back at old photos of my family's time at Kathyrn."
The Jackson/Harms connection to the school has been recognized in the past. Deanna said when her brother Darcy passed away in 2004, the school established the Darcy Jackson Memorial Scholarship – an award presented to a graduating Grade 8 student who shows strong leadership in and around the school.
According to Banderk, the school plans to recognize families like the Jackson/Harms, who have longstanding ties to the school, next school year.
“We have an outdoor classroom kind of area, so we will either put up plaques about each one of the families there, or put them up in one of the hallways,” he said.
Scott Strasser, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @scottstrasser19
