Founders’ Day kicks off 50th anniversary celebration at University of Lethbridge

For at least one day, studies took a back seat at the University of Lethbridge.

Friday’s festivities featured bag pipes, a hot tub and a replica cake as the U of L kicked off Founders’ Day weekend, a celebration of 50 years.

“In totality, there will be a huge amount of activity that takes place in 2017,” U of L president Mike Mahon said. “It’s really all done for the most part by volunteers.”

The year-long celebration kicked off in style with speeches from dignitaries and even a song from a university alumnus. Award-winning Canadian musician John Wart Hannam paid tribute to his old school, playing a song he wrote specifically for the event.

It was a day designed to look back on how far the university has come. For some, they’ve seen the change first-hand.

“It was literally nothing,” Mavis Stannard said. “Just prairie and farmland.”

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Stannard started taking university courses at Lethbridge College in 1965 and graduated with the first-ever class in 1968.

“By the time they actually got the university here on this location up and running, my mother drove my sister here on dirt roads,” Stannard said. “I had no idea that it would grow this much and really this quickly.”

It really was a party, celebrating what’s been accomplished. For Mavis, it also points to the future.

“I have two granddaughters that I hope are going to grow up and come here, as well,” Stannard said. “But they’re only seven and two now, so we’ve got a long ways.”