OBSERVERXTRA FEATURE |
A Moment Frozen In Time
» Long gone from EDSS and scattered far and wide, student athletes depicted on mural retain a link to the school.
BY: VANESSA MOSS
They’re long gone from the corridors, but a dozen former students have left their mark on Elmira District Secondary School. Literally.
The year was 1985.
Big hair, thick glasses and acid-wash jeans were in style.
Canada was in the midst of a recession.
Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” was topping the charts.
And in Elmira, an art teacher was cementing the era in time.
Tom Thirtle and more than 100 volunteers painted a mural in the gym that year depicting the spirit of the students and teachers.
In the intervening 23 years, styles have come and gone (and, in some cases, returned again) but the mural remains, having stood the test of time.
The 12 athletes depicted on it, however, have all left Elmira and are now scattered throughout North America and beyond.
Despite taking different paths in life, these 12 have a common link in the artwork that has once again brought them together.
“It is a celebration of sport and, in my opinion, a tribute to all those who have participated in and enjoyed athletic activities at EDSS over the years,” former gymnast Leslie Parker said of the mural. “It was a great project to be a part of.”
Remembering how the mural came about, Thirtle said it was quite simple. He saw a stark gym wall that he wanted to transform into something special.
“Creativity starts with an idea and with a touch of inspiration,” he explained.
“As a coach, I would go from school to school to school and I would see … various schools that would have things on the wall; I just came into ours and said, ‘there’s nothing there.’ Since I commuted every day from Waterloo with the head of phys-ed, … it just came up one day and I said, ‘is there anything we can do there?’ and he said, ‘hey, go for it.’”
Thirtle – now the owner of a sportswear company in London – designed a small-scale version of the mural first, highlighting 12 of Elmira’s best athletes in ten different sports. To capture the essence of each activity, he took various pictures of the students performing in the gym.
“I remember being in the small gym and just sort of running around in circles as he kept taking pictures of me to get a good shot,” said Julie Madden, a runner. “You had to keep going over and over again and I wasn’t even wearing running shoes – it was my squash shoes or something like that. So, the shoes that are in the picture, I always laugh because those aren’t even running shoes.”
At the time, the athletes didn’t think much of this opportunity, many not even remembering why they were chosen. But now, they see the experience in a different light.
“The older I get, the more of an honour I think it was looking back on it – seeing that it’s still up there,” said Jim Radler, a sprinter.
“I think it’s a great legacy,” added Greg LaRue, a pole vaulter. “I may have not done a whole lot in high school, but I’m always going to be up there until they paint the wall, which I seriously doubt they’re going to do.”
Replacing the art piece with an updated version would be no easy feat, considering Thirtle and his volunteers – including parents, teachers, and other staff members – worked meticulously for two years to complete the project.
After laying out the small-scale drawing, Thirtle and his team projected the design onto the wall, traced the images and then went to work on painting.
They concentrated on sections based on colour, standing on scaffolding that was up for a year.
“It was very methodical, but it was a lot of fun,” Thirtle said.
“It gave the kids (art students) a sense that what they’re doing had some sense of purpose. That it’s worthwhile that people would be looking at it and that it would stay there. It was pretty cool.”
The end result was a larger-than-life representation of both the athletes and the overall school atmosphere at the time.
“Elmira high school was a pretty amazing place. It was well-run [and] had an amazing staff. … It was pretty ideal and it was a great place to work,” Thirtle said.
“It was a great time in my life,” said Tracey Strauss, who played basketball.
Jill Lorch (swimmer) remembers how important she felt when people recognized her on the wall back then.
And Laurie Cossey (Taylor), a field hockey player, was shocked that decades later, people still do.
Her daughter visited EDSS for a drama festival a few years ago and recognized her mother on the wall, not knowing about the mural beforehand.
“She said, ‘there’s this person that looks just like you up on the wall,’” Cossey said with a laugh.
As each member of the mural group reminisced about his or her high school years, only fond memories came up.
Kendal Bauman dug out his old yearbooks and Mark Booker recalled what a great job the art class did, even though the people up there are “real old” now.
“My hair is a little lighter and the rest of me is a little heavier than in the picture,” Radler noted.
Now living in Kelowna, British Columbia, Tony Kreutzer, a soccer player, said that being “immortalized” on the mural gives him a connection to his past.
“It’s kind of a nice feeling to still be part of it all.”