Peter Gluyas of the Ashburton College Alumni. Photo supplied.There’s something special about the first 10 years.

Peter Gluyas believes so and is chairperson of an alumni committee that’s organising a reunion of students, teachers and staff who attended Ashburton College in the first 10 years of its life.

The reunion of Ashburton College – the First 10 Years – from 1965 to 1975, will be held on May 7 and 8, 2021.

Gluyas and his committee met this week with the major task of informing as many former students as possible and inviting them to the reunion. One thing’s for certain they’ll all be over 60 and may have some discretionary time to attend the function.

However, finding them is not all plain sailing as American Magic found out. Records of who attended Ashburton College during those years are difficult to find, so Gluyas is “spreading the word”.

“Ashburton is a parochial community and people know people, [who] know people,” Gluyas said.

“By announcing and publicising the reunion, we’re hoping former students will respond or people will contact us with names of those who could be interested.

“We know the head boys and girls of Ashburton College during those years, but after that we’re relying on our own contacts and community input.”

While a reunion is essentially for former students to come together and reconnect, Gluyas has a further purpose.

“Our intention is to foster closer relations between school, community and business, with the aim of providing ongoing support for Ashburton College,” Gluyas said.

“We realised that building a network of former students needed to be structured so we established the alumni two years ago and have been working towards the reunion ever since.”

It hasn’t been easy because, for the first six years, Ashburton College was located on two sites.

The college was an amalgamation of Ashburton High and Hakatere College and remained on existing sites until the new school was built and opened in 1971.

Gluyas is planning an informal gathering down-town on Friday night, May 7, with a tour of Ashburton College the following day.

Former pupils will watch a first 15 rugby game and inspect plans and a model of the new school which will be built on the existing Walnut Avenue location.

On the Saturday night, there’ll be an official reunion dinner with speeches, toasts and entertainment provided by school musicians and vocalists.

Gluyas is hoping to attract up to 200 former students and appeals to them to contact committee member, Shirley Falloon.

Her email address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

© The Ashburton Guardian - 23 January 2021