Classes already started more than two months ago at Edmonton’s Constable Daniel Woodall School but on Wednesday, family and friends of the fallen police officer whose name the school bears were joined by dignitaries and students to celebrate its official opening.
The southwest Edmonton school is located in the community of Windermere and teaches students from kindergarten, up to Grade 6.
Woodall’s widow, Claire, and her two boys now live in England and were not in attendance but the slain Edmonton police officer’s parents and some of his friends were in attendance for Wednesday night’s official opening.
“It definitely helps, knowing that the people of Edmonton thought so much of him,” Woodall’s father, David, said Wednesday night.
He added that “being a police officer is what he (Daniel) always wanted to be.”
“The first word that comes to mind is proud. Just immensely proud,” Woodall’s mother, Denise, said Wednesday night. “When we lost Dan, it was obviously tragic and it was so very sad, but when you think that two years later there is a park and a school, it just shows us how highly people thought of him.
“We have lost Dan, Claire has lost a husband, and the boys have lost their dad but we always have these fantastic things to look back on and say, ‘Well, that school was named after our son because he was such a good person.’ So it’s helped a great deal.”
READ MORE: Widow of fallen Const. Woodall humbled by Edmonton school given his name
Watch below: On Sept. 4, 2017, Nancy Carlson spoke to Claire Woodall about what the opening of Edmonton’s Constable Daniel Woodall School means to her.
Woodall started working for the Edmonton Police Service in 2007 after beginning his law enforcement career with the Greater Manchester Police in England. The 35-year-old, who worked with the EPS’ Hate Crimes Unit, was one of two officers shot in west Edmonton in 2015 while trying to serve an arrest warrant. The other officer, Sgt. Jason Harley, survived but Woodall was fatally wounded.
READ MORE: Edmonton police Const. Daniel Woodall, 35, killed in west-end shooting
Watch below: On June 8, 2016, Kent Morrison filed this report one year after Const. Daniel Woodall was killed in the line of duty.
Education Minister David Eggen was among the politicians who attended the opening on Wednesday evening.
More to come…