NEWS RELEASE
BILLY BISHOP MUSEUM
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This Thursday, May 23, at the Meaford Hall Arts and Cultural Centre, students from Georgian Bay Community School and Owen Sound District Secondary School presented tributes to local servicemen who served during D-Day and the Battle of Normandy.
Starting with a reception at 6, the ceremony began at 7 p.m., to a full-capacity audience of veterans, parents, and local dignitaries.
A week from Friday, a large group of students from Owen Sound District Secondary School and Georgian Bay Community School will embark upon an overseas journey in which they follow in the footsteps of previous generations of Canadians including many from their hometowns who served during the First and Second World Wars. They will visit Great War and Second World War battlefields to better understand what happened during these two costly global conflicts of the 20th century that resulted in so much death and destruction.
They will also make pilgrimages to British, Canadian, Commonwealth, French and German war cemeteries, gaining historical empathy for the lives lost to these wars.
To mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy, the two schools along with the Meaford and Billy Bishop museums collaborated in a project entitled In Their Steps/Through Their Eyes. The students took the lead in the In Their Steps component of the project as they have been researching and writing narratives of 14 soldiers who hailed from their hometowns. Their tributes to these local servicemen will be read at this ceremony. A follow-up component of the project entitled Through Their Eyes will have the students reflecting on their experience while they were overseas. They will share their thoughts during a presentation later this year. A special collaborative exhibition will be on display in the Meaford and Billy Bishop museums, showcasing the students’ work.
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