One of two Remembrance Day displays in the hallways at Crescent Heights High School. (Photo Courtesy Bob Schneider)

By Chris Brown

Reverent and respectful

Crescent Heights Remembrance Day displays pay tribute to the poppy

Nov 9, 2021 | 4:55 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Unable to welcome veterans to the school or have in-person ceremonies the past two years, a pair of visual displays in the hallways of Crescent Heights High School are giving students a way to recognize Remembrance Day.

Principal Shonna Barth says it’s been interesting to watch the students in the hallways when they stop to look at the tributes.

“I find them to be very reverent and respectful as they’re looking at the display. There could be a temptation maybe to glorify war and that sort of thing but I don’t get that feeling when they’re looking in here. It’s a very quiet sombre kind of approach,” she says.

Barth says teacher Steven Kemp and Sheila Donner, president Robertson Memorial Branch 17 Legion in Medicine Hat, wanted some way for students to recognize the 100th anniversary of the poppy.

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Donner gathered the items from the Legion and other connections, and she and Kemp put the displays together over a weekend.

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Barth says today’s high school students are far enough removed from the First and Second World Wars that they may not have family members who fought in the wars.

“So it’s important as a school and as a community that we make sure that the students are still aware of what these people did for us and that we make sure that we never forget and that we learned from the past,” she says.

Donner agrees, and calls the displays wonderful.

“It’s a way to teach the students about our past and what the veterans have sacrificed. What it must have been like to have fought and not know. Whether you were going to make it home to your family,” she says.

Ebel’s Limousines & Event Décor also contributed to the displays.

Students take a moment to view one of the displays. (Photo Courtesy Lee Krasilowez)