Hegarty, 53, has great memories of the friends he made there and the teachers who taught him back in Grade 8, when St. Martin was a middle school.
The graduate from the class of '68 drove an hour and a half from his current home in Clarington to attend the St. Martin Secondary School's 40th Anniversary Reunion on Saturday morning. He was one of about 200 St. Martin alumni who came from as far as New York and Texas for the open house and barbecue.
Before the morning mass, Hegarty joined a group of early birds to take a walk down memory lane.
"(The school is) twice the size it was when I was here," said Hegarty, adding he was looking forward to running into old friends he's had since kindergarden.
Tanya Tack was hoping to reminisce with old friends, too.
After admiring her 1992 graduation photo on the wall in the hallway, Tack said she came back to the school to see how everything has changed and to see familiar faces.
"There used to be 45 portables, now there's none ... the gym looks fantastic. The whole layout has changed," said Tack. "And the Grade 9s don't look like niners."
For many students, like Melanie Silveira, the reunion was about some very special years spent at a very special place.
"It's a really great community. Teachers get along with students and it's very family-oriented," said Silveira, who graduated in 1997 but returned to teach physical education at the school five years ago. "You have that sense of belonging so when you come back on the other side of it, you get to give back."
Bruno Iannicca, Chair of the Dufferin Peel CAtholic Distric School Board, said the teachers at St. Martin made an impact on his life.
"Every graduate has what I call a Kodak moment," said the trustee of 17 years. "Those are the moments that you didn't take a picture, but you have that picture in your heart. Those are the pictures that you remember in your heart when you think of your school and touching moments.
He said he ran into many familiar faces at the reunion.
"You look at those relationships and you think back about how they were back then," he said. "Not a lot has changed. They're only X amount of years older, and hopefully wiser, just like myself," Iannicca said with a smile.
Mayor McCallion attended Mass in the cafetorium and presented St. Martin Principal Frank Furgiuele with a certificate recognizing the school's 40 years of education.
jle@mississauga.net
