H. A. Halbert Public School -- Reunion -- Celebrate 75 Years

Contact

DRAFT -- PENDING TWO APPROVALS

What: Halbert Reunion

Who: Anyone who attended H.A. Halbert Public School (and one guest who did not attend Halbert)

Where: H. A. Halbert Public School (just off McCowan Road, north of Kingston Road)

When: TBD (late October)

Dear Mr. McCowan

On behalf of the Toronto District School Board, I salute your efforts in proposing an H. A. Halbert 75th Anniversary Reunion. Halbert Alumni have the Board's blessing to freely use the Halbert gymnasium on a Saturday this coming autumn. Alumni are most welcome to renew friendships and celebrate their all-important formative education at Halbert. Any insurance issues are covered by the TDSB policies. You need not be concerned about arranging for security. There are no forms to fill in nor applications for you to make!

Best wishes for promotion of the Reunion using your web page, https://mccowan.org/halbert75.htm .

On the day of the Reunion I will be happy to read greetings from the Board, which you may also include in the front matter of your second edition of Neigh The Front: Exploring Scarboro Heights.

Best regards

Courtney Lewis, Superintendent of Education FOS18
Toronto District School Board

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Dear Mr. McCowan

Thank you very much for offering to take the lead on organizing the reunion celebration of H. A. Halbert's 75th Anniversary as proposed in your email of Feb 15 2026.

The $20.00 per person pre-paid admission price is very fair. For their $20.00 ticket, each Halbert attendee receives a copy of the expanded second edition of the 140 page Neigh The Front: Exploring Scarboro Heights. Half of the ticket price will go toward community studies / learning at Halbert. Our students will be excited to learn about their community using Neigh the Front: Exploring Scarboro Heights.

You are authorized to look after the ticket sales and name tags through the web page https://mccowan.org/halbert75.htm .

Your kind offer to personally donate to Halbert the printing costs of the first fifty copies of Neigh the Front is very generous indeed -- very close to $500.00.

We look forward to greeting many Halbert Alumni on ___TBD____________at TBD_____.

See you then!

Rian Bhoolai
Principal at H. A. Halbert Public School

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From: Bruce "Little Cow" McCowan (Chair of the 1968 Literary Society)

Dear Halbert Alumni,

It is my pleasure to be part of the team that is planning Halbert's Reunion of 2026 -- a celebration of 75 years of excellent elementary education. I have been authorized to look after ticket sales and NameTags. Your NameTag / Receipt is your ticket to get in the door on the day of the reunion.

H.A. Halbert was built in 1950-51 on the Robert McCowan homestead. The McCowan family farmed much of Halbert's catchment area for almost a century. The local area was known as "Scarboro Heights" (hence the street called Scarborough Heights Blvd).

For reviews of the first edition of Neigh the Front: Exploring Scarboro Heights (published and printed for the 50th Anniversary of H. A. Halbert in 2001), please have a look at the reviews etc on www.mccowan.org/reviews.htm. The first edition sold out quite quickly.

For your $20.00 2026 reunion admission price, you will receive a copy of the second edition of Neigh the Front: Exploring Scarboro Heights.

The 140 page (give or take) second edition of Neigh The Front will include additional oral histories of the Halbert catchment area: the farming era (1910-1950), the modern community (1950-2025), and learning at Halbert (1951-2020).

Accordingly... I invite you to send in your own true short story about the community and / or learning at Halbert. Wait! No ChatGPT or the like!

If you would like to propose a class or team / club photograph for Neigh the Front please send a high resolution jpg to me at bmccowan@netrover.com before June 1 2026. To absolutely guarantee that your group photo is included in the book, you'll have to buy five copies of the book (total $100.00). Yes, Yes... five of you can gang up to sponsor the photograph at $100 -- just let me know the names of the five sponsoring Alumni. And of course, please send me the names of the students and teachers whose smiling faces grace the photograph.

Note: If a registered person cannot, as it turns out, attend the reunion, postage needs to be paid for the mailing of Neigh the Front

To attend the 2026 Reunion please (before Sept 1 2026) copy / paste the following into an email to bmccowan@netrover.com, and fill in the details accordingly:

Name to Be Placed on NameTag:

Years Attending Halbert:

email Address:

Cell Phone Number:

I Would Like to Help on the Reunion Planning Committee: Indicate Yes or No

Name of One Guest Who Did Not Attend Halbert (Guest will receive a NameTag, but no book):

I Would Like to Sponsor this Photograph in Neigh the Front:

Before Sept. 1/26, send a $20.00 e-transfer to bmccowan@netrover.com, with "Halbert75" in the message field.

The James McCowan Memorial Social History Initiative is dedicated to making occasional contributions to a body of work celebrating the endeavours and achievements of Scots and Scots' descendants in Canada, putting the "who did what" into the larger context of when, where and why.