Classmates: Bob Romanes and Bob Williams were among the former students at Saturday’s reunion.
SQUARE dancing in the streets was a big bonding moment for 90 teaching students in the early 1950s.
It was a key topic of conversation when most were reunited on Saturday afternoon.
Ballarat Teachers College class of 1953-54 gave a square dancing demonstration in the first Ballarat Begonia Parade.
Reunion organiser Bob Romanes said back then square dancing was a pretty big thing.
But quirky classroom stories from early teaching days dominated talk at the college’s 60th anniversary reunion at Ballarat Lodge.
“The whole purpose was to sit and chat to one another,” Mr Romanes said.
“The story that stuck with us most of all was a female teacher, who was petrified of snakes, teaching at a one-teacher school when there was a snake in the school yard. A grade six boy mangled it to pieces with a great lump of wood.
“We were all laughing. Back then when most of us left college, we were sent to the tiniest rural schools and had stories like this.”
The reunion drew 45 classmates from as far as Queensland and South Australia to reminisce over a meal.
Mr Romanes said Ballarat Teachers College was behind Dana Street Primary School in an old bluestone building.
The two-year course offered a primary teaching qualification.