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Photo reminds Salmon Arm resident of connection to former drama teacher Justin Trudeau

Prime minister remembered as being as a funny, larger-than-life person
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Justin Trudeau, pictured in this 1997-98 yearbook for Pitt River Middle School in Port Coquitlam along with current teacher Angela Cummings, who instructs at the Salmon Arm Secondary Jackson campus. (Contributed)

Thanks to social media, a Salmon Arm resident came to realize a Mr. Trudeau who taught her drama in Grade 8 did in fact go on to become the Prime Minister of Canada.

Tammy-Lynn Post first made the connection when she saw the photo on Facebook taken from the yearbook of 1997-98 for Pitt River Middle School in Port Coquitlam. The photo shows a group of seven student teachers. Among them, in the back left, stands a young and bearded Justin Trudeau.

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“A lot of the students liked him; he was kind of like a jokester, a funny guy. He was really involved in it,” Post said remembering his teaching style.

Also in the photo is Angela Cumming who is now a teacher at Salmon Arm Secondary’s Jackson campus in Salmon Arm. Cumming grew up in Kamloops and went to the UBC Middle School program. She did her student teaching alongside 42 others, including Justin Trudeau

“He was a lot of fun, lots of personality,” Cumming said. “He was pretty full of life and energy, pretty dramatic. Anytime I had to do a presentation with him he was a larger-than-life kind of person.

“Public speaking wasn’t something he had to work on.”

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When Cumming realized he was indeed the son of Pierre Trudeau, she asked him if he would follow in his father’s political footsteps. Ironically, Trudeau told her at the time he wanted to stick to teaching. Ultimately though, Cumming was not surprised at Trudeau’s eventual entrance into the political theatre.


@CameronJHT
Cameron.thomson@saobserver.net

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