From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi
The management and students of Padopads Harmony Secondary School, Makurdi, has commenced activities to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the school.
The three day event which began on Friday to with a church Thanksgiving Mass, has the theme “Building people of strength through knowledge and light”.
The Principal of the school and National President, Padopads Old Students Association, (POSA), Mrs Regina Ahura, who stated that the school is fulfilled having impacted on the world through their old students said the aim of the celebration was to bring the old students together for the good of the school.
She said, “you can see that the old students of this school are found across the length and breadth of this world. In all careers, all professions, the students are not only serving the Benue community, but we have impacted the entire world. Some are in Nigeria, others are in UK, some in America and they are helping the society at large, in all aspects of life.”
Mrs Ahura, also an old student of Padopads, noted the importance of old student associations in schools saying “We want to use the occasion as a launchpad and as a reunion to establish a standing and dependable old student association that all of us will all be proud of.”
She expressed joy that the old students were arriving from all nooks and crannies of the world to attend the anniversary adding that the state Governor, Samuel Ortom, whom she described as a digital Governor, will be commissioning an ICT center for the school.
During the extraordinary assembly, former Principals of the school, Chief Helen Awuna, Jerome Hwande and Emmanuel Adzer urged the old students to connect and help one another wherever they find themselves and also help the school to enable it continue to achieve and impart greatness.
Some of the old students, Kizito Akuranya, Iorfa Ude, Anyammgura Joe-Peters, Iorshe Joseph, Comfort Iortyom and Justina Charles, expressed excitement and happiness to reconnect with old students of the school saying the school moulded them into what they are today.
They also agreed that there was the need to reposition the school to be at par with modern standard pledging to contribute their quota to achieve it.