MY FIVE-YEAR NOTRE DAME JOURNEY, 1965 – 1969 PART 2
This is the 2nd of a six-part series from an article published in the 2019 Chicago anniversary brochure by the Notre Dame Alumni Association, North American Chapter – Part 1 here
By Mr. Pius Adebayo Omodara
National President (Emeritus)
and 1969 Senior Prefect
PART 2: MY CLASS MATES
January 1965 was the year we all started in form I, we were very raw and most activities were strange to us in our first month. We had the difficulties of understanding what our white teachers were saying each time they came to our class. You’ll recall the whites’ English accent is quite different from ours. We later understood them to the extent that we were mimicking them!
Notre Dame had a tradition of resuming at the beginning of every term on a Sunday evening and by the second day i.e. on Monday, classes would resume in earnest. Learning was fun and quite competitive. A monitor (class prefect) was elected among us and the lot fell on me and I was my class monitor for successive four years until I became the school head boy (Senior Prefect) in form five.
As we journeyed along, some of us fell by the way side, we met some who were repeating the class and some new intakes were admitted to join us. By and large, we became respectable and obedient students who were loved by our teachers. The seriousness of students in the school, our classmates inclusive, was a good thing to behold. There were so many methods we adopted to prepare for examination. Some would go to the bush to read, some would be in the library, while a few would not read much. One thing we later discovered was bad and we did it innocently was the use of ‘DEXA’ to keep us awake during the night while reading – our seniors introduced this to us. What about reading with the two legs in a bucket filled with water all in order to keep awake. It will interest readers to know that with all these methods of reading enumerated above, we had no electricity supply to t he school. We were using “bush” lamps in our various dormitories while for preps, we were using gas-lamps. However, by 1967, the school purchased a generating set and by 1968 the wiring and electricity supply to the school was completed.
We were very active in the presentation of drama sketches at the end f every year/price giving day. We staged many plays. My humble self, Joachina Aina, Joseph Fagbemi, Julius Ogunrotimi, Akinyemi Michael were very good dramatists who thrilled the parents each year they came for the end of year activities.
Many of us were rascally and played a lot of pranks. The late Akinyemi Michael (May his soul rest in peace) would pull the hairs of the legs of the Principal, Dr P. Kelly, while moving round the class without the principal knowing. He would retort and say “African flies”! Sheets of papers were rolled into cigarette shapes, lighted and put into the noses of those dozing/sleeping at preps. We had a lot of fun and these are the few names we can recall among so many of us who entered class 1 in 1965. They are:
(1). Pius Omodara who was the class prefect from form I to form IV and became the School Senior Prefect in form V.
(2). Gabriel Elegbeleye, the assist Senior Prefect and prefect in-charge of Socials.
(3) Benjamin Esan – Class Prefect (Monitor)
(4) Gabriel Afolayan – Asst. Class Prefect
(5) Ebenezer Ogunlusi – Food Prefect
(6) Raphael Egunjobi – Store Keeper
(7) Clement Ogunyebi – Sport Captain
(8) Peter Oyeniran – Time Keeper
(9) Anthony Adeyeri – Labour Prefect
(10) Stephen Ojo – Asst. Labour Prefect
(11) Joachina Aina – Health Prefect
(12) Joseph Fagbemi – Laboratory Prefect
(13) Francis Adamolekun
(14) Peter Osasona – Library Prefect
(15) Richard Olugbade – RIP
(16) Clement Adelusi – RIP
(17) Dada Michael
(18) Michael Falade
(19) Sylvester Olajuyigbe – RIP
(20) Raphael Adebayo – RIP