What began as a routine storage room cleanup at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary ended with a 40-year reunion between a former student and his lost yearbook. 

Inside what used to be a men's restroom, vice principal Brent Schieman and staff located dozens of yearbooks that stretched back to the early 1960s.  

One particular yearbook piqued Schieman's interest. Amidst the comments and congratulations written inside the book, they found a name of a student. Figuring they were in possession of his yearbook, Schieman and staff set out to find the owner.  

After some online searching, they found the former student a world away in Hong Kong. Graeme Lang, who graduated in 1965, figured his yearbook was lost for good. 

"I haven't seen that yearbook for more than 40 years," wrote Lang in an email to Schieman.  

"He was delighted," says Schieman. "To this day, even we really don't know how the yearbook ended up in our possession."

Lang figures that after his parents sold their house, whoever bought it went through some old boxes and found the yearbook. Schieman believes that Lang's book would've been returned to Churchill sometime in the late-seventies.  

The yearbook has now been reunited with Lang, who is a professor at Hong Kong City University. 

"Going through the yearbook certainly brings back some memories of many classmates I wouldn't have recalled without the yearbook," wrote Lang. "It's amazing how some of those memories are still in there somewhere, even though it's impossible to remember most of those names and faces without the yearbook."

For a minimum $5 donation, Churchill students and history buffs can pick up a yearbook from the school themselves. Dates range from the mid-sixties to modern day. For more information, please email jvonsiemen@vsb.bc.ca.