James Cardinal McGuigan CHS 30th Anniversary Alumni Dinner Friday 12th October
Students, teachers and parents celebrated McGuigan's thirty years with good food, music and some very interesting and funny stories. This happened Friday October 12th in the school's new auditorium and cafeteria.
Menikina P.Pesce (centre) with the Advocate reporting team from the left: Sherrie- Mae Lacdan, Ama Twumwaa, Kofi Nkansah and Veronica Chicas.
Menikina said that while she was at McGuigan she formed the foundation values that have guided her through her life. The days in high school were carefree and enjoyable. Now she enjoys the responsibility of raising three children.
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Frank DiCecca (far right) has been a physical education teacher at McGuigan for 29 years. He really appreciates the students and his fellow teachers at McGuigan. A favorite time he remembers was in 1985 when he coached the senior girls’ basket ball team. The students played very well and went to the Toronto women’s final.
Sitting right across the table from Frank is Elena (Fedeli) DiCecca, his wife. Elena was in the first graduating class at McGuigan. She now teaches the social sciences and math at St Augustine CHS in Brampton
Frank Greco (end of the table) was one of McGuigan’s Honour Roll students for a day. His interesting story goes this way. Frank was walking along the hallway and there were not many students around. He stopped near the Honour Roll board and just for something to do stuck a hair pin he had with him into the lock. To his surprise the door opened. At the bottom of the cabinet were many letters. He thought “ahh today I can become one of McGuinga’s honour students”. He found all the letters for his name and then carefully put the words Frank Greco up on the board. The next morning early he got a call from the principal. To make a long story short, Frank was on McGuigsn’s Honour Roll for only one day!
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Mark Marino being interview by Ama Twumwaa of the Advocate. When Mark was in grade 12 he was elected president of McGuigan student council.
Brayn Ridley and Mannuel Ribeiro: (picture on the right) were also on this student council. To raise money for student events the council decided to publish a school newspaper and sell it to students. Unfortunately only a few students were willing to pay for the paper. Mark, Brayn, Mannuel and others on the council had to think of other ways to raise money.
Besides this admirable newspaper effort, Mark remembered times when students played tricks on teachers. One time when a teacher was called away from his classroom for a while, Mark recalled how the students decided to change all their desks around. The idea was that when the teacher came back to his classroom he would think, when he opened the door, that he was entering the wrong class. The plan worked. Their teacher opened the door. He was surprised. He said he was sorry, closed the door and went back out into the hallway. He knew from the hall he had been fooled when the whole class bust out into loud laughter
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Mr. Marcello DiAgostino and Mr. Len Volpe, above, have coached many McGuigan soccer teams together. They talked about a game in the early years when they were playing one of the McGuigan’s rivals, Michael Power CHS. Near the end of the game, which Michael Power had dominated, MrDiAgostino told the Powers coach, whom he knew, that McGuigan was going to win the game! His friens told him that he was crazy. As the end of playing time approached McGuigan was given a penalty kick. The McGuigan kicker made a beautiful shot and the ball went into a top corner of the Power’s net. The game was now tied up. In overtime McGuigan won the game. McGuigan as the new, young school “on the block” gained much respect on this day and from then on played with confidence.
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Teaching colleagues and friends for many years; Ms Cimini (1st left) and Ms DiManno (far right) have been teachers at McGuigan since the early years. In remembering that time, with fewer students and a smaller school, they remarked about how relaxing it was to teach. The students were very co-operative. Ms Cimini is now a guidance counselor at McGuigan and Ms DiManno now teaches at St. Basil College
