Pages 51 – 100 - RM of Morris

96
KANE - THE SPIRIT LIVES ON
seven and eight students just sat there and laughed at me.
After awhile I chose to join in. When they finally stopped
laughing, they told me that they had also done this to
another teacher who had promptly told them to stop or
he’d call the police. Apparently they liked my strategy better.
And with that we started learning together.
Before Kane I had never skated in my life. I had never
played organized sports. But suddenly I was immersed
into baseball and hockey, especially hockey. Several fathers
in the community allowed me to use their vans to
drive to games. We played hockey against anyone who
would give us a game. We had only twelve boys in the
class, but with players like Barry Friesen, Carl Suderman,
Earl Bergman, and Marvin Brown in net, we were able to
win games as the rest of us learned the game. Any team
that played against our team with fair reffing usually lost.
We even won against the Altona 13-and-under team which
had won the division. Very few of the students were involved
in organized hockey with the proper equipment. I
can remember the Altona team being amazed at the types
of equipment we had.
Not to be out done the girls took the divisional trophy
in track and field that year. Everyone helped, but
Connie Hildebrand, Gladys Suderman, Maxine Blatz, and
Pamela Brown really made the difference for us.
We produced several drama nights. On one of those
drama nights, our Christmas program, we put on the play,
“Dr. Doop and Detective Snoop”, starring two of the greatest
actors of all time, David and Ron Blatz. We had done
some testing with dye as we needed them to look like
blacks. We found out that if we mixed the school paint
with half water and half Cover Girls base, that the paint
would come off after the drama. All went well. It came off
after the practice just like it had been planned. But, for
our evening performance I made the mistake of mixing
the dye after school. By the evening, unknown to me, all
the Cover Girl had evaporated and the dye never came off
those two for several weeks. Can you imagine them going
to all their Christmas gatherings with black skin? I wonder
if anyone has pictures of them. On a different night, who
can forget Steve Hildebrand and his paper horse?
I still remember all those supper invitations Gloria
and I received. Thanks to each one of you for making us
so welcome.
As you can see, I have many special memories of Kane.
GLORIA PENNER
(1968-1973)
by Gloria Penner
On our way home from interviews in Roland we accidentally
came upon an ad for openings in the Kane School.
Well! Until that point I, like many others I’ve since spoken
to, thought Kane only had elevators! We were just entering
Kane city limits so we stopped at the Kane Garage. It
so happened that the owner, Mr. Harder, was on the School
Board and had a key to the school. He took us for a quick
tour and told us the date of the interviews. The rest is
history.
I have many great memories of Kane, including the
wonderful community involvement in school events, the
friendly people and of course, the best students! In my
year at university my first in-school teaching experience
was in an inner city school near the Health Sciences Centre.
The next was in St. Norbert with Morris the last and
longest. As I “graduated” from one school to the next, I
found that the quality of students improved each time. I’d
thought Morris was the ultimate - that was until I taught in
Kane. Kane topped everyone.
One humorous memory is of a spelling dictation in
my first year, possibly my first month. I clearly dictated the
word “sheet” which was followed by a scatter of giggles
and snickers. Hm-m! so more clearly and a bit more sternly,
and likely louder, I repeated the word. Well! The giggles
and snickering was louder. By this point I was quite put
out and so very clearly and almost certainly more loudly, I
pronounced, “sheet!” Gales of laughter followed and suddenly
the penny dropped! Red of face and desperately
trying to control my own laughter, I informed the children
I was speaking English and would they please spell
the bed linen type of sheet! By the way, some offered to
teach me Low German, but when I tried out the words on
my Dad, he shook his head and said that the vocabulary
wasn’t very useful and wasn’t quite what I thought.
My own former grade 6 teacher (and Vern’s grade one
teacher) Mrs. Gloria Martens was a great encouragement
to me. She was also the originator and instigator of the
great horse incident. She told us we could pull it off only
once in a district. She told me to think of a student, likely
a little boy, with a slight reputation for naughtiness. We
were planning to have a spring or late winter concert.
Vern and I set to work. We fashioned a horse head out of
heavy cardboard, using tape, staples, string, strips of old
black cloth, black paper, and probably buttons for eyes
and binder twine or wool for a mane. This work was done
on the sly in the evenings after school and hidden under
the stage. Unfortunately we made the horse head bigger
than we thought, and had quite a problem finding a halter
big enough for it. Finally we were ready with head, halter
and horse blanket.
The afternoon of the concert just before the children
left for home by bus or van, we took aside the master of
ceremonies (Marvin Brown), the two Grade 7 and 8 stage
managers (I’m sorry I can’t recall their names) and Steve
Hildebrand. We showed them the horse head, etc., and
told them our plan. Young Steve was a bit worried, but I
assured him he only had to ACT like a brat, that he WASN’T
one. He was to insist on showing his horse and even stamp
his foot!
Over halfway through the concert we were set. With
the stage managers inside the horse, Marvin was about to
announce the next item, Steve appeared beside Marvin
and told him he wanted to show the people his horse,
“Charlie”. Marvin tried to shush him and get Steve off stage,