HS van der Walt High School
1915 - 1992
About Us
Brenda Payne:
1971 - 1973 Protea/Magnolia
"The HS van der Walt High School Group on Facebook had been started by Karen and I joined in 2008. There were not a lot of members at the time but we kept looking for past pupils though Names Database, SA Reunited and Facebook too.
Sometimes the searching was made a little more difficult because girls get married, have different nicknames or are not exactly over the moon about being found by the school group - but we did not give up!
Without me knowing about it, Maryna had been trying for years to locate some of her old school friends by advertising in the YOU magazine. My sister-in-law happened to see the advertisement and contacted Maryna to tell her that I too was trying to arrange a reunion of old Dassies.
It certainly was a great day that Maryna and I joined forces and the group has grown with more and more Dassies finding us and slowly but surely the teachers and staff members are joining us.
The launch of this website and our monthly Newsletter is another step in making it easy for past students and teachers to find us. We do realise that not everyone is able to access Facebook from their work computer or even keen to join Facebook so this is the alternative.
Vital information posted on Facebook will be now be available on the website and lists of old students and staff will gradually be updated till we have complete lists for visitors to access.
We look forward to your continued support of our activities and do let us know what you think!
March 2014
Maryna (Coetzee) Ontong :
1972-1973 Magnolia
"I had always wondered what had happened to my Dassie friends, then one day, I decided to advertise in the YOU magazine for Dassies of 1972-1973 but nobody responded.
A year later, I tried again and then I received one call from a Dassie, Bernie Scott, but she wasn’t from my time. I tried for a 3rd time in the YOU magazine and then Brenda Payne’s sister-in-law saw my ad and contacted me and she said that Brenda had wanted to organize a Reunion for quite a while.
Then Brenda phoned me and she introduced me to Facebook and to the Dassie site where there were about 40 Dassie members at the time. I did not know much about Facebook at that time so I acquainted myself with FB and read every comment that was placed there. By some of the sad comments there, it felt like I attended a different school!!
Anyway for a while, I observed the site and read about how they would like to have a Reunion but nobody did anything. In the meantime, a few more Dassies joined. Then in 2010 when my older sister suddenly died from a gastric bypass operation to lose weight that went wrong, I realized just how short life was and made a decision there and then that if there ever was going to be a Reunion, then that was the time and that’s when I set everything in motion and contacted my baby sister, Julie and asked her if she was up to it. So her and I organized the whole Reunion. I would search for Dassies at night when my family had gone to bed.
The Reunion took place from 27-29 April 2012 at the old school and was a great success. A few of us stayed in Protea hostel for the weekend. We were 78 people (which included Dassies, ex Teachers and the last Principal, Mr Wessels - see GALLERY for pictures!) Mr Wessels suggested there that the school would have been 100 yrs old in 2015 so why don’t we have our next one then, and that is where I am right now.
Brenda and I started searching for more Dassies in earnest. We are now over 430 Dassies. The 100 year Reunion will be at the old school from 2 - 4 October 2015 with a cocktail function on the Saturday evening but nothing finalized yet .
Working on it!!"
March 2014
