Virginia Cook was an Osoyoos school district trustee back in the mid-1970s who pushed tirelessly to have a new high school built in Osoyoos. Cook is heartbroken that current trustees have voted to close Osoyoos Secondary School. (Keith Lacey photo)
A woman who became the heart and soul of the community when it came to getting Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) built, says it breaks her heart that local trustees have voted to close the local high school.
“I have to ask if they have lost their marbles,” said Virginia Cook, who was the most vocal of the three trustees with the old School District 14 who represented Osoyoos on the board of trustees back in the mid-1970s when the push began to build a high school in Osoyoos.
“To think that trustees who don’t live here and have no vested interest in our community can do what they did and can cut the heart out of this town is mind boggling to me.”
“And don’t believe for one second that closing a high school in a small town like ours won’t be devastating. What town doesn’t need a school for their kids?”
Cook, who was born and raised in Lytton, B.C., moved to Osoyoos 50 years ago and decided to run for elected office and become a trustee in the mid-1970s when her three daughters were in school.
The battle to have a high school built in Osoyoos became personal, said Cook.
“All three of my girls grew up in Osoyoos and only the youngest got to attend the new high school in Osoyoos,” she said. “My two oldest daughters had to take the bus every single day and they didn’t get to enjoy the high school experience that every young person should get to enjoy.
“They both found Oliver to be very cliquey and I can still remember them complaining all the time about never being able to fit in. The Osoyoos kids were considered outsiders or interlopers and my girls didn’t hate going to school, but they also don’t have the fondest of memories either.”
Her youngest daughter loved attending OSS and still talks lovingly of those days, she said.
“She loved every second,” she said. “She knew everyone and had so many friends. She was also a competitive figure skater and she could pursue her passion because she didn’t have to spend almost two hours a day on a bus.”
As a trustee for more than a decade and as a 50-year resident of Osoyoos, Cook states unequivocally that there has been a longstanding tension between residents in Oliver and Osoyoos and that extends to school trustees.
“The Oliver trustees were dead set against a new high school in Osoyoos … and some of them fought until the very last days to include Grade 11 and 12 once the government announced we were getting our own high school,” said Cook.
The reasons for wanting to open a high school in Osoyoos were very simple, she recalled.
“We felt the town had the population base and the town was growing and we could support our own school,” she said. “The Sun Bowl Arena had just been built and we had a beautiful golf course and the town was willing to work with us to offer programs at both those facilities.”
One of the Oliver trustees who was dead set against opening a high school in Osoyoos was Bill Barisoff, who later went on to become a popular MLA for Penticton.
Trustees from Oliver and Okanagan Falls simply couldn’t understand why residents in Osoyoos wanted their own high school for their children, said Cook.
“We wanted everything that goes along with having your own high school in your own town,” she said. “A high school means new families and new jobs and new opportunities and they just couldn’t understand why we would want that for our own community.
“I guess it’s because shipping kids off by bus to Oliver from Osoyoos had been in place for so long, they just thought we would never want to change that.”
Cook still fondly remembers the passion among Osoyoos residents to support her as the momentum to build OSS continued to grow in 1976 and 1977.
“I had so much support and there was so much passion,” she said. “The same emotions that we’ve seen over the last four months since they announced they might close the school were all there 40 years ago. It was just as intense.”
Cook is convinced that the legal action taken by Town of Osoyoos council to overturn the decision to close OSS will be successful.
“There has to be some way that this process can be stopped,” she said. “I applaud our mayor and council for their diligence and not accepting this horrible decision.”
Like so many others, Cook is convinced the trustees who don’t live in Osoyoos had made up their mind to close OSS long ago.
It’s more than convenient that the school district has announced recently that SOSS has additional capacity for more than 250 students, while deciding to close OSS (235 students this past school year) in the name of saving money, she said.
“The biggest problem today is trustees have become too compliant and they’re not willing to fight back against the government,” she said. “I honestly think every one of those trustees know that closing this school is wrong, but they simply follow what the government tells them to do even if it’s making a horrible decision like this.”
The Town of Osoyoos offered more than a million dollars over three years and numerous other cost saving measures that would have worked were introduced to the trustees, yet they ignored all options and voted in favour of closing OSS, which is shameful, said Cook.
“They should be ashamed of themselves,” she said.
Osoyoos Elementary School is at full capacity and the future of OSS would have been very bright, but the decision to close the school will have a lasting impact for generations, she said.
“They took the easy way out,” she said. “They could have saved our school, but they had already made their minds up.
“Local kids should be able to go to school at home … and not spend endless hours every week on a school bus.”
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
