Petersfield High Past Students Stage Reunion to Build Gymnasium

The Petersfield High School Past Students’ Association in Westmoreland will be staging its first Reunion Weekend from Friday, October 6 to Monday, October 9.

According to President of the association, Victoria Patterson-Young, the four-day event will not only be geared at celebrating the accomplishments of the school, but to raise funds for the establishment of a gymnasium at the institution for its student athletes.

“We start with a family fun day at the school on Friday at 9:00 a.m., and end at 6:00 p.m. We will be having a lot of activities and a lot of giveaways. We will be having a netball competition with past students versus current students, dancing competitions, a bounceabout, and music by a popular sound system,” Mrs. Patterson-Young told JIS News.

“Saturday’s activities will consist of a church service at the Petersfield Seventh-day Adventist Church, followed by the Reunion Dinner at the Negril Hills Golf Club, which will be preceded by cocktails. Our guest speaker will be Deputy Commissioner of Police, Novelette Grant, who is a past student of the institution,” she added.

Mrs. Patterson-Young noted that the weekend activities will continue with a beach party and cookout on Sunday (October 8), at the Bluefields Beach Park in the parish, followed by a joint general devotional exercise on Monday morning, with the final event being an excursion to an attraction in neighbouring St. Elizabeth.

“We have persons coming from England, USA and Canada, including Glenwright Sharpe, the reunion Chairman. We are hoping to raise between $300,000.00 and $350,000.00 from the activities,” Mrs. Patterson-Young said.

The Petersfield High School was established in 1970. The Past Students’ Association, which was formed approximately 20 years ago, meets monthly at the institution and provides support to the school’s programmes, including its sporting activities.

In recent times, Petersfield has become a force to be reckoned with in track and field. Earlier this year, the girls’ team placed 11th, while the boys team placed seventh at the 2017 Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) Boys and Girls’ Championships at the National Stadium in Kingston. One of the school’s athletes, Kevin Nedrick, also broke the javelin and shot put records.

In addition, six of Petersfield’s athletes subsequently represented Jamaica at various international championships, including the Pan American Under-20 Championships in Peru; the Commonwealth Youth Games in Nassau, The Bahamas; and the IAAF Under-18 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya.