This page is for St. Clair Secondary School Alumni to reflect upon "the good olde days". Those wishing to contribute a memory or two please feel free to e-mail the webmaster at tamy@speedline.ca

"My memories of St. Clair go back to before it was even built. I used to live on Grey Crescent and behind our houses there was a rough dirt track that we called "Murphy Dirt Track" which was later built up and is now called "Murphy Road". If we went one way it lead to London Road but the other way led to where St. Clair High School is now built."

"When construction on St. Clair commenced we used to daily ride our bicycles over there to look at the ongoing construction. Then in Sept. 1961 it opened and at first it only had grades 9, 10, 11 and one commercial class of grade 12. I was transferred from S.C.I.T.S to St. Clair in grade 11. Wonderfully enough the same English teacher that I had in grade 10 was transferred to teach at St. Clair and I also had him for grade 12 as well. His name is Bill Palmer and he went on to be Principal of St. Clair. This man was the only teacher I ever had in all of my years of being educated in both England and Canada that ever really taught me anything."

"It was quite an experience to be in the 'top' grades of a High School when one was only in grade 11. One was able to be in various activity groups and run the show. I designed the first Year Book cover and, apart from any sports activities, was in other groups."

"I remember my 1st day at the school as it was opening as a brand new high school. All the other high schools had their traditions & we were the new kids on the block. Livinging in Corunna at the time, had no real choice as to which school to attend in Sarnia. Looking back, it was great that I got the opportunity to be a Colt."

"I remember when we were first allowed to wear jeans to school. They were of course bell bottoms and they could not be torn or fringed on the bottom. Skirts had to be as long as your arm - meaning if you held your arm against your body, and extended your fingers you should be able to touch the hem. If not, it was too short."

"I have fond memories of St. Clair. My Mom , Dorothy Mc Donald, (since deceased) was the head secretary at the time, while I was there. She told me when I started in grade nine, "Anne, I don't want to ever see you down at the office!". Needless to say I made sure I was never sent down there!"

"I remember we had to wear those awful purple gym suits! Shapeless bags with a belt in the middle. And we were all embarrassed to meet the guys outside when we all were out running. I remember the dances in the gym, where we would hold up the wall, and we all hoped a guy would ask us to dance. ( I am showing my age here!)"

"I remember our school band at the time, who you could never tell what they were playing! (We didn't even recognize "God Save the Queen" at one occasion.) I am sure they are much better now. I remember getting the Friday afternoon off, and getting on the school bus to go down to the park and watch the "Colts" play football. We usually lost; but, in grade 13 we WON!! Boy, what a noise we made, cars honking, purple and white ribbons flying, the cheerleaders screaming.....it was great."

"One of my memories of St Clair was that I had 2 older brothers that went to St Clair also..Alan and Brian Sygrove..and I was always being compared to them..Well one day I was called to the office for something and the vice principal, Mr Newell, looked me in the eye and said.."Nancy, you are not at all like your brothers." and I turned and said that's right..We are totally different..All he did was give me a dirty look and sent me back to class..I couldn't believe what I had said..cause he was very strict.."

"I attented St. Clair High School from 1969-1974 and have many very fond memories of my years there. My favourite memories encompass the times I spent as a member of both the Junior and Senior High School bands. The music program and band participation offered many experiences to me and enabled me to share my love of music and travel various places with the Band. Our band instructor, Mr. Knight was always a pleasure and I looked forwarded to his music classes every day. We once went to a provincial music competition, of which we had practised for weeks. I recall that when we got all set up on stage and prepared to begin our piece of music, he whispered to us the name of another piece of music, rather than the one we had been preparing. My heart dropped when he said it, because the song that we where about to play began with a lengthy solo performance, by myself. Fortunately there was not enough time to fret about his change of mind, and we played the song flawlessly. Our band came home proudly with a first place award for our performance that day, and I was so proud to have been a part of that accomplishment. I remember making eye contact with Mr. Knight when he whispered that change of song to us very quietly, yet very confidently, "Lawrence of Arabia". Despite having to get up very early for 7:am practices I always looked forward to Band and couldn't wait to play some of my favouite pieces. Mr. Knight was an exceptional teacher whom I admired very much, but regretfully I never had the opportunity to thank him for the experiences he gave me. Thank you Mr. Knight and may God Bless You."

I have fond memories of attending St. Clair from 1970-1975. There were a lot of great teachers but Miss Chalmers was the most outstanding. (History 551) English was my favorite course every year and I still remember the novels we studied after all these years. Mr. Newell was our strict Vice-Principal and Mr. Watson was Principal. I can remember Mr. Newell storming into the girls washroom to clear out the students sneaking a smoke. Those were good years and I would love to be in touch with friends from that era.

Fond (funny) memory of St. Clair would be in the library with Ms. Polock (I think that was her name). We were always getting kicked out for talking too much. One day she had had enough of all of us, so when she came out of her office to kick us out, instead of naming each individual at the table, she said "That table!! Out!!" (meaning everyone at that table has to leave). Of course, being the smart alecks that we were, we picked the table and brought it out. She was so mad, but Ithink we caught her later trying not to laugh.

"I have some good memories from those years. I was on the wrestling team and I dated Carol Burgess starting in grade 10 until my first year of college ( Lambton College ). One of my favorite teachers was probably Mr.. Rapage (not sure of the spelling) my grade ten geography teacher. I had a lot of good teachers and a lot of good friends. Oh, so many wonderful memories. It would be nice to put a reunion on to get some of the old friends together again."

"My fondest memory of St. Clair was of course the camera club and yearbooks. Although I have not done much photography since high school, I look back at all the pictures that I took throughout highschool with fond memories (yes I still have boxes full of negatives and contact sheets). Many of the pictures that I have are worth a thousand words and speak volumes of the people of St. Clair and the fun we had (dances, proms, football victories, team photos, clubs, clean-up days, concerts, parades, Special Olympics, Christmas assemblies, Fashion Shows and lots of fun candids)."

"I graduated from St.Clair in 1987. This was the year the graduation class constructed the courtyard.Many students helped to build the pond, bridge and all the landscape. Some of the teachers I remember was Mrs.Prudomme, Mr.Duffy, Vice Principle Mr.Cook, Mr.MacDonald, Business teacher. Some of the students I remember were Carl Bulika, Jeff Getty, Doug Paquette, Chris Lacasse, Tim Tasker, Donna Wolsey, Brian Duffield, Richie Palmer,and of course Mike Weir (Golf Pro), Jeff Naylor."

"Does anybody remember when a few guys from the football team dressed up as women and lip synced to "In my house" by the Mary Jane Girls? They obviously won that contest and even did an encore. That was the best! I forget which year that happened. (85-86?)"

"I also remember some of the pretty cool morning announcements. I enjoyed the announcement about the annual trip to Cedar Point in May (I went every year). Whoever did that did a great job. I still remember the last words in that announcement.. "and the new Iron dragon" (with the words "Iron Dragon" echoing in the background)"

"I remember some pretty funny christmas skits also. In grade 12 I had a chippendale calender in my locker and a teacher came up to me and told me to keep the porn at home. It wasn't that bad. It was an upper body shot of a guy with his shirt open SLIGHTLY. I don't know who he was but he had brown hair and a thick brown beard. I might be wrong, but for some reason I think I remember that he liked to wear sandals."

"I remember some guy dressing up as vomit at the Halloween dance (gross). I think that was in 1984, maybe 85."

"My fondest memories have to just be the people! You never have times like you did in highschool! Life was one big party! The people couldn't have been more fun! Mr. Laidlaw had to be the best teacher!"

"I would have to say my fondest memories of St. Clair were the dances ...especially the Junior Prom."

"I have to admit that I have a lot of fond memories from St Clair. There was the food train, all the band trips, the pep rally when our Senior football team FINALLY won a game. But y'know what? They all began with those absolutely delicious oatmeal cookies in the cafeteria! I still get cravings, and I graduated in 1989!"