Before the Canobolas Rural Technology High School was built at its campus on Icely Road, the first students attended school at the Orange Cultural Centre.
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On Saturday, those early students and some of their first teachers will gather at a reunion at the site from 10.30am as part of the school’s 50th anniversary.
Among those who will attend are husband and wife Steve and Roslyn Fuller who were part of the first intake of students as well as Col Taylor who was one of the first teachers and stayed on for 35 years.
Mr and Mrs Fuller were both in their first year of high school when they were among the school’s first students in 1966.
They were students without a school and took lessons at Orange High School but were kept separate from the other students.
Founding principal Fred Dobbin was confounded by the situation when he arrived in Orange in January 1967 and no one at the motel he stayed at, the post office or real estate agents could tell him where the school was, because it hadn’t been built yet.
However, Denis Gregory from the Central Western Daily showed him the vacant school site and the cultural centre, which would be the temporary school in 1967.
As a former infants school, it still had infants sized toilets and furniture and included two old wooden buildings out the back and a toilet block.
“We used to have to walk down to the Tafe for science… home economics was at the rural school [Orange Public School],” Mrs Fuller said.
Although the school was initially named the East Orange High School, Mr Taylor said it was renamed Canobolas High School because the school looked directly out to Mount Canobolas and was originally situated in what used to be the Canobolas Shire.
“It was the coldest site in Orange,” Mr Fuller said.
Mr Taylor also lamented the school’s design which he said failed to take the climate into account.
“There were no covered areas, there were breezeways,” he said.
“Polar breeze ways,” Mrs Fuller said.
“There was a fight for the gas heaters, there was a fight to get to them especially when it was snowing.”
Mr Taylor said 10 of the original teachers will attend the reunion and activities will continue at the main school site throughout the afternoon and on Sunday.
Tanya Marschke
I am based at Orange and cover a wide range of subjects as well as the weekly business column. I've worked consistently in the the media industry since 2006 including the past seven years at the Central Western Daily. Before moving to Orange, I worked as a journalist at weekly newspapers the Beaudesert Times and the Gold Coast Sun in Queensland, as well as the Scone Advocate in the Hunter Valley. I started my career at the Ridge News in Lightning Ridge while I completed my journalism studies remotely at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.
I am based at Orange and cover a wide range of subjects as well as the weekly business column. I've worked consistently in the the media industry since 2006 including the past seven years at the Central Western Daily. Before moving to Orange, I worked as a journalist at weekly newspapers the Beaudesert Times and the Gold Coast Sun in Queensland, as well as the Scone Advocate in the Hunter Valley. I started my career at the Ridge News in Lightning Ridge while I completed my journalism studies remotely at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.
