Although it wasn’t as bad as working on the chain gang at the quarry, detention at the old Belmont secondary school had its rocky moments.
Langford Coun. Lanny Seaton, who attended Belmont at the former site on Jacklin Road, said the principal had a unique approach to detention.
“If you got into trouble they made you put rocks in a wheelbarrow and move them for detention,” said Seaton.
“When the wheelbarrow was full you were done. That was better than having them tell your dad,” he added with a chuckle. “You did the work and avoided trouble at home.”
“The whole area around the school was gravel back then,” Seaton recalled.
“They were getting ready to build Elizabeth Fisher middle school, which eventually became part of Belmont.”
The new Belmont school building opened back in September, on the grounds where Glen Lake elementary school once stood. Several weeks later, the old Belmont was demolished to make way for a mixed-use development.
The irony of the old site returning to a pile of rocks was not lost on Seaton, who confessed to hauling a few full wheelbarrows for detention when he attended classes between 1957 to 1961.
He recalled the school’s first principal, Archie Stevenson, signing rocks at a reunion in 1975 for students who attended the school between 1947 and 1961.
Seaton also went to the elementary school now known as Ruth King. “It used to be Langford Elementary back then and Ruth King was the principal.”
He still gets together regularly with some of his former classmates to reminisce about the old days at Belmont.
reporter@goldstreamgazette.com