The Alumni of Hollola Senior High Celebrate School’s Anniversary
Hollolan lukio celebrated its 25th anniversary on Oct 28, 2000. Some 350 former students (about 1/6 of all the students ever graduated) gathered in the new auditorium of the renovated school to remember old times and to see classmates. In the evening some 120 of them had a dinner party in a local restaurant
while several others gathered in other places all over Hollola and the city of Lahti.
The 25th anniversary of the school was the first major event of the Alumni Club, founded only three years earlier. Several older Finnish high schools have their alumni clubs and the previous students of Hollolan lukio wanted to have their own as well. The alumni club serves several purposes. First of all, it is a link between the school and its previous students. The club maintains data banks and address lists of its members, their profession and field of expertise. The school and the students may contact them to learn about different professions or companies to give the students a better view of the surrounding society. The students might also be able to use some of the alumni as "consultants" in their project works and so on.
The second purpose is to serve as a link between the alumni themselves. Through the club previous students can get in touch with their classmates to organize reunions or other events. The club has also started an Internet-based database on contact persons for each class.
The third and final purpose of the alumni club is to collect pictures, memorabilia and memories to give a better view of the history of the school. You may ask if a 25-year-old school has any history... Naturally 25 years is still a short time. However, if we start collecting and preserving history at this point, the school will have an exact view of its past say in another 25 years.
So what was the anniversary of the school AT the school like? As I said, some 350 alumni got together on a rainy October day
in the newly renovated auditorium. The principal told us about high school today. For most of the alumni today’s high school is totally different from their own experiences. Today, you don’t have classmates in its old meaning, you dont even have classes "the way they used to be". School has become free in many different ways: You are free to choose what you study, how you study and even when you study. Even the A-levels (abitur) aren’t the same anymore! In the "good old days" the last winter really was horrible as you had to take all the final exams in a short period of two weeks. Now one is free to take the final exams in 1½ years time...
After the principal’s introduction our "dear old" biology teacher and science teacher gave us a peek on the projects the students have done in the past few years. We also saw a short picture cavalcade of old teachers.
As the "official" part of the anniversary was over we could finally get to the "main course", class reunions. For me this was the first reunion after my graduation 13 years ago. There weren’t too many from my class present but it was a surprise to see how little people had changed since our days at school. We had some 40 reunions on that day, the biggest one with nearly everybody from the class present.
If one thing is certain, it is that the 25th anniversary and the huge reunion was a success. Old classmates seem to need some sort of a kick in the buttocks to get together. If the alumni club can give the kick, then it has taken its place in the school’s everyday life...