UP FOR GRABS
Martin Collegiate has uncovered old yearbooks.
Locked inside a storage room in the dusty depths of Martin Collegiate, 1,000 yearbooks dating back to the opening of the school in 1959 were stacked inside boxes.
Over the years, unsold books would be added to the collection, pushed against the wall to make room.
Principal Lisa Allen recently decided to give the school a good clean — under the auditorium, in old classrooms and old book rooms.
Along with educational detritus and photographs from years past, she and her students stumbled across the “oodles and oodles” of old yearbooks.
“I thought they should be in the hands of the community — not in a vault,” Allen said Friday.
She placed an ad online on Monday, explaining the books would be available to anyone for a modest $5 donation to the school.
At 3 a.m., her phone started beeping with email alerts. “It’s gone viral,” she said. People all over Regina, as well as Martin alumni who have since moved away, have been contacting her non-stop.
Some want a book from their own senior year, some are picking one up for a relative and some lost their yearbook in a fire or flood.
Others couldn’t afford the $25 price tag at the time of their graduation.
The news that yearbooks are up for grabs has spread like wildfire, Allen said; staff have even overheard about the sale as they stand in line in coffee shops.
But the tale has been twisted along the way.
“People keep on saying it’s because Martin Collegiate is closing, but we’re not,” she said.
“We’re cleaning up so our facilities are even better for our students. Martin is alive and well.”
One more time, Regina — yes, you can get a yearbook, but no, the school is not closing.
If you’re chasing a book from a particular year, Allen advises you to call the school first, as some have run out.
Otherwise, she said, feel free to turn up to the school between 3 and 4 p.m. and she will happily show you to the boxes.
The yearbooks have also provided an unexpected modern history educational benefit, with students poring through the yearbooks checking out the hairstyles and just how short old basketball shorts were.
“It’s so good to see the joy on their faces as they go through and look at it all,” Allen said, adding with a chuckle, “It’s like looking at your dad’s yearbook.”
Martin Collegiate is at 1100 McIntosh St.