I’ve been a journalist in Sudbury for 20 years now, and some cool things can come with that.
Back in 2010, I did a story for Sudbury.com’s now-defunct predecessor newspaper, Northern Life, about four little girls who were entering junior kindergarten at Copper Cliff Public School. Their parents had also attended the same school together.
Four years ago, I was invited to do an update story as these girls graduated from Grade 8 at CCPS during the pandemic.
Adria Waddell, 17, Lacey MacKinnon, 17, Jennifer Dempsey, 17, and Emma Chateauvert, 18, just graduated from Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School together, and they invited me to do another update.
Watch the video above to see our reunion.
This is basically our own little version of the British “Seven Up!” documentary series, which, if you’re not familiar with the premise, follows the lives of 10 males and four females in England beginning in 1964, when they were seven years old.
“I think that it’s cool that it’s shown the progress of all of our lives throughout our years and through different schools and different periods in our lives,” said Adria.
Jennifer said they are all still best friends, as they have been their whole lives. “It seems like it was yesterday,” she said. “Fourteen years together went really fast.”
The now young ladies don’t remember anything about me doing the story when they were four years old, although they giggle about the stormy scowl on adorable little Lacey’s face in my photos.
She recreated that scowl for us in a current photo, to the peals of laughter from her friends. Lacey figures she’d been told she had to sit for my photos and couldn’t go to the playground, which made her mad.
More clear in their memory is their 2020 graduation from Grade 8, which took place in the early part of the pandemic. Given the disruptive events of that time, they didn’t get to have a graduation ceremony for Grade 8.
With their graduation from high school, complete with a proper ceremony in which they got to cross the stage, it’s the first time in their lives the group has not gone to school together, although they’re all staying in Sudbury.
Adria will be taking dental hygiene at Cambrian College, Jennifer will be taking concurrent education at Laurentian University, Lacey will be taking Cambrian’s pre-service firefighting program and Emma will be taking psychology at Laurentian.
“It will be different,” said Jennifer. “Like, no lunch together.”
“We spent 14 years together, and now we’re finally splitting up,” said Lacey.
Asked if I should do a story a little later on in their lives when they’ve graduated from post-secondary school, they enthusiastically agree to that idea.
“I think so, that would be pretty cool,” said Lacey.
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com's assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.