In 50 years of history, we have a lot of stories about the Kerby Centre and the work we’ve done in our community.
We’ve written a ton of different stories — just about coming to the halfway mark of our year’s goal of 50 incredible stories for 50 years.
But there are plenty of smaller, shorter little stories: little snippets from our incredible history. These bits and bobs aren’t necessarily long enough to devote an entire post, but we wanted to share them nonetheless.
So please enjoy a curated selection of shorter stories this author is calling: Kerby’s Bits and Bobs.
Continuing education at Kerby Centre
There are plenty of awesome opportunities to learn at Unison’s Kerby Centre, whether it’s a musical instrument or a new language. But for a period earlier in its history, the education offered was more classical.
The Continuing Education program at Kerby Centre started roughly around the same time as the centre opened in 1973. Some of the first programs available included “Conversational French” which is in line with the language classes Kerby offers to this day.
However, a few documents of course listings — provided by the archive at the University of Calgary — showed that there was, for a time, a wider selection of courses available to members more akin to what you’d see at a university.
For a fee of $5.00, senior students could take courses such as “The Romantic History of the West,” “Shakespeare: Men and Women,” or “Religion in the Modern World.”
A course outline was also archived, which states the different readings and schedule for “Shakespeare; Men and Women,” which was being taught by Dr. J. Black in the fall of 1975.
Place your bets!
Kerby Centre has had a variety of fundraising events over the years, but none stick out more than the Kerby Derby; a charity horse race held at the Ranchman’s Club on Oct. 24, 2003.
Attendees wore their fanciest race day hats and ascots, bid on silent auction items and bet on horses, all to raise money for renovations in honour of the Kerby Centre’s — at that time — 30th anniversary.
An honoured visit
We’ve been host to plenty of visitors over the years, but maybe none coming from as far as Koji Ikenaga and his father Hiroshi Ikenaga came.
In the late 90s, father and son — both medical doctors — visited Kerby Centre as they were interested in establishing a senior’s centre at the hospital where they worked in Nagasaki, Japan. The two were so impressed with Kerby Centre that they returned later in September of the same year, bringing along their two chief nurses and the Deputy General Manager of the hospital.
They spent two full days studying and touring and presented the centre with a beautiful wall hanging and figurine.
Kerby Museum of Fashion
This story was one that absolutely sparked the imagination of the author with its extremely unique premise!
In 1974, Kerby Centre saw the start of a club called the Kerby Museum of Fashion.
“A fashion show, using reproduction costumes, put on by an outside group was held at the Kerby Centre in that year,” wrote Ken McGuire in his Kerby History document.
This show sparked the interest of many members, and Mrs. Clara Smith and a few others decided to start collecting original costumes and accessories of a historical nature.
“By 1983 they had collected approximately two hundred with the oldest dating back to 1870. Volunteers accepted donations, catalogued, stored and researched the donated costumes” and they continued to do so into the 2000s.
Unfortunately, this is all the information we have about the Kerby Museum of Fashion! If you have recollections of this volunteer group, or any of our smaller bits and bobs from this week, please contact our editor at andrewm@unisonalberta.com as we’d love to know more!
