Fif­teen years ago, Bish­op Anstey High School cel­e­brat­ed its 75th year in ex­is­tence. The cel­e­bra­tions were tinged with some con­cern, as the in­fra­struc­ture of the school was bad­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ed. The 75th year thus be­came a fund-rais­ing fo­cus, as the com­mu­ni­ty around the school bond­ed to­geth­er to raise the rel­e­vant funds to re­place the un­safe build­ings. The Old Hi­lar­i­ans' As­so­ci­a­tion, the alum­ni as­so­ci­a­tion of the school, broached the idea of an all-in­clu­sive fete. It was a rev­o­lu­tion­ary idea, as no oth­er school had done any­thing like it. The first fete was cer­tain­ly a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. With the sup­port of 500 pa­trons, the event gen­er­at­ed a mod­est prof­it.

Three years lat­er, the fete had grown to near­ly 2,000 pa­trons, a num­ber at which it has re­mained, be­cause the women of the com­mit­tee be­lieve that one must "eat lit­tle and live long," and that too much growth is dif­fi­cult to man­age. The mem­ber­ship of the com­mit­tee has changed and grown over the past 15 years, and few of the orig­i­nal com­mit­tee mem­bers re­main. How­ev­er, ex­cel­lent plan­ning has en­sured that the es­sen­tial char­ac­ter of the event has re­mained in tact. Over the past 15 years, the school has raised mil­lions of dol­lars in pro­ceeds from the fete, and these funds have been put to­wards new build­ings, pur­chas­ing mu­si­cal in­stru­ments, com­put­ers and many oth­er es­sen­tial projects.

This year will al­so mark the 90th year of the found­ing of the school by Bish­op Arthur Anstey. In 1921, he found­ed a school for girls based on sev­er­al core prin­ci­ples. He was de­ter­mined that girls be af­ford­ed the same ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties as the boys had been for cen­turies, and he vowed that girls from all so­cial class­es and back­grounds should be al­lowed ac­cess to qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion. He al­so felt that the school should wel­come and en­cour­age girls of all re­li­gious per­sua­sions to ex­cel aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, in ac­cor­dance with the An­gli­can doc­trine, which ad­vo­cat­ed ex­po­sure to qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion for all.

These found­ing prin­ci­ples were the cor­ner­stone of Bish­op Anstey High School, or St Hi­lary's, af­ter its pa­tron saint. Now cel­e­brat­ing 90 years of ex­is­tence and ex­cel­lence, Bish­ops has al­ways pro­vid­ed a holis­tic ed­u­ca­tion ex­pe­ri­ence, pro­duc­ing in­tel­li­gent women who some tend to la­bel as as­sertive, aloof and even brusque on oc­ca­sion, eas­i­ly dis­tin­guish­able by the Bish­ops "ac­cent." How­ev­er, they view them­selves as wit­ty, fun-lov­ing and down-to-earth. Among the school's il­lus­tri­ous alum­nae are Dr Pat Bish­op, No­ble Dou­glas, Joyce­lyn Carr-Sealey, Judy Chang, In­grid Lash­ley, Sharon Christo­pher, and Jacque­line Quam­i­na, Jus­tices Mon­i­ca Barnes, Paula-Mae Weekes and Mar­got Warn­er, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Corinne Bap­tiste-McK­night, for­mer-Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, Janelle Com­mis­siong (Pen­ny), our first Miss Uni­verse; Althea Rocke; and Danielle Jones.

For this 90th year, the school com­mu­ni­ty will be host­ing both cel­e­bra­to­ry and fund-rais­ing events to con­tin­ue this won­der­ful tra­di­tion, with the first be­ing its an­nu­al all-in­clu­sive fete on Feb­ru­ary 5. En­ter­tain­ment will be pro­vid­ed by Roy Cape All Stars, Dil-e-Nadan, and De­stra Gar­cia, among oth­ers. Pa­trons will be treat­ed to an ul­tra-pre­mi­um bar, and a va­ri­ety of lo­cal cui­sine. For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion call Tonya at 344-2334, or the Old Hi­lar­i­ans' Of­fice at Bish­op Anstey High School, Chancery Lane, Port-of-Spain, at 625-5844.