Safety patrollers honoured with picnic by AMA
Posted Jun 4, 2015 11:10 am.
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Nearly 7,000 of Calgary’s finest school safety patrollers are being recognized for a ‘job well done’ Thursday, at the annual year-end appreciation picnic.
It’s hosted by the AMA, city police and Heritage Park.
School patrolling in Calgary has a long and storied history.
Jack O’Neill has attended every single one of these events since he was a patroller way back in 1939.
He says back then the kids hand-sawn black and white stop signs to help their classmates cross safely.
“And the bandoliers they wore, were made out of bedsheets, white bedsheets– they cut them up and there’d be a strap over here, and then they’d have buttons in the front and that sort of thing. So it was very very rough in terms of the equipment but it was made by the school,” he said. “But it worked.”
In the 77-year history of patrolling in Calgary, there’s never been an injury or worse.
