In 2006 the Hardy Souls of ’76 held a 30th Class Reunion. A memorial table of photographs was set up to honour nine fondly remembered fellow graduates who had tragically passed away far too young. They include David Allan, Jeff Bradford, Tony Cottrell, Rick Gunter, Jon Lambi, Richard Postlewaite, Laurie Rosvold, Joanne Venne and Doug Volk.
The Reunion was a jubilant event, so many laughs and great memories. Quite a number of our former teachers attended. We left feeling connected again, and understanding that we had certainly been privileged to attend Evan Hardy when we did.
There was a surplus after the reunion, so we decided to raise even more money to establish the Hardy Souls of ’76 Memorial Scholarship Fund. We were delighted to find out later that after our actual graduation in 1976, we had a surplus, which we had all forgotten about. $1,567 had been sitting in a School Board account for over 30 years! Of course, we added that to our new fund, which will provide one annual grant to be used to assist the successful applicant in receiving post-secondary education and training. The Class of ’76 is the only graduating class of Evan Hardy to provide such a scholarship!
We are so pleased to be part of the Saskatoon Community Foundation. While we appreciate the Saskatoon Public School Board for helping us to collect initial donations, the SCF is a better mechanism for providing scholarships in perpetuity, which is what we wanted to be able to do. Our partnership with SCF will make it much easier to build our fund in the future and eventually provide more substantial scholarships to deserving Evan Hardy graduates.