On a radiant afternoon, Zion College became a gathering place for memory and renewal. Alumni, clergy, staff, and students stood together as time itself seemed to join the durbar. With grace and authority, Togbi Tagbor III, Chairperson and Guest Speaker, delivered his address under the theme “Back to Our Roots, Inspiring the Future,” carrying the blessings of Togbi Agbesi Awusu II, the Awadada of Anlo Dukor.
In a few sentences, he set the tone: this was no ordinary gathering. It was the past meeting the present, the present beckoning the future, and the roots that shaped generations calling us all home again.
He began with gratitude, simple, unpretentious, and profound. “Good afternoon,” he said, and the words felt larger than a greeting: they sounded like a welcome to a shared inheritance. He reminded the durbar that journeys scatter us, across towns and professions, across countries and decades, but a common soil remains an anchor that never lets go. For Zion College alumni, that soil is both memory and mandate. If time blurs faces, moments like these restore them, and with them, responsibility.
He lingered on the joy of reunion, not as an event but as a rite. There is something sacred about classmates meeting again: laughter that grows deeper, stories that grow funnier with time, bonds that grow stronger in spite of distance. The parade grounds suddenly felt like an album, the classrooms like a living archive, the dining hall like a temple where friendship once broke bread. School friendships do not die, he said; they simply lie dormant until gatherings like this revive them. Looking around at faces, some lined with experience, some bright with youth, you remembered a simple truth: family is not always blood. Sometimes it’s those who rehearsed marching drills with you, shared notes with you, and lent you courage when you thought you had none.
Then he turned, with that gentle insistence that marks true leadership, to the pride of Zion College. Pride not as boastfulness, but as gratitude’s posture. Zion College has shaped generations, he said, distinguished professionals, community leaders, innovators, clergy, public servants, artisans, administrators, all pillars in every sector of society. The values it imparted, discipline, service, integrity, leadership, resilience, are not decorations; they are habits. Many have become engineers, lawyers, doctors, academics, entrepreneurs, civil servants, and craftsmen. But all are first and forever products of a school that believed in them before the world knew their names. Zion College laid the foundation, and in return, alumni carry the house. May you never forget, he urged, that you are who you are because Zion College nourished the seeds of ambition and character within you.
The heart of his message was simple, and its simplicity made it compelling: what you pass on measures what you truly feel. Gratitude is not complete when it is only words. Gratitude matures when it becomes work, when it builds, mentors, renovates, funds, and restores. He invited alumni to remember their gifts and to treat those memories as obligations: teachers who saw beyond youthful mistakes and believed in your potential; discipline that shaped your character; friendships that grew into lifelong support systems; moral and academic training that opened doors. These gifts are not trivial. They are inheritance. And inheritance, if it is worthy of its name, must become legacy.
So he asked, not as a demand but as a communal reflection: what legacy are we leaving behind? What imprint will our generation of alumni make on the future of Zion College? To answer, he proposed boldness, quiet, steady, permanent boldness that builds for those who cannot yet build for themselves.
Let this homecoming be more than nostalgia, he said. Let it be responsibility. Let it be said that in 2025, the old students of Zion College rose to the occasion and made their gratitude visible, usable, durable.
He outlined the scale of possibility with clarity and vision, a catalogue of goodness that could change the school’s horizon:
- Renovated classroom blocks: restore dignity to learning spaces and expand access for growing enrolment.
- A modern ICT centre: equip students with digital fluency, coding literacy, and the tools for 21st-century problem-solving.
- A science laboratory upgrade: make experimentation safe, rigorous, and inspiring, where curiosity becomes discovery.
- A strengthened library: curate knowledge, nurture reading culture, and archive Zion College’s own history with pride.
- Staff accommodation: support the educators who turn potential into excellence, retaining talent through humane provision.
- A scholarship fund: lift financial barriers for brilliant, determined students who need opportunity more than pity.
- A water project: ensure reliable, healthy access to this most basic necessity so learning isn’t interrupted by scarcity.
- A student leadership and mentorship centre: cultivate confidence, civic duty, and character, where seniors guide juniors, and alumni guide all.
- Any strategic intervention the school urgently needs: respond not to nostalgia, but to real needs assessed with integrity and urgency.
Let future students walk these corridors and point to a project and say, “This was done by our senior brothers and sisters who came back home and gave back.” That sentence, a child’s pointing finger, a teenager’s curiosity, a teacher’s smile, would be the true applause to this gathering, echoing longer than any speech.
Then came a moment of tender candor: a message to the current students. He spoke directly, without flourish, in the language of care. You are sitting in the same classrooms where the seniors gathered today once sat. You walk the same corridors they walked. You are the future they dreamt of, and the future that Ghana is counting on. Your journey will demand discipline, hard work, respect, and focus. Protect your future. Stay away from substance abuse, truancy, and negative peer influence; these destroy dreams before they even begin. Cherish your education. You are here to learn, to build character, and to prepare for greatness. Study hard. Use your time wisely. Respect your teachers. Discipline your mind. Aim high and believe in what God can make of your life. Focus on your goals. There is no shortcut to success, only preparation and perseverance. Make your time here count, so that when you return for your own homecoming, you will return not with regret, but with gratitude and pride. Remember: every great story begins with preparation. And your preparation is now.
In the closing cadence of his address, Togbi Tagbor III released a proverb like a blessing: “A river that forgets its source will dry up.” In those words lay the moral of the durbar and the charter for its aftermath. You have come back to your roots not merely to reminisce but to renew; not merely to reconnect but to recommit; not merely to celebrate but to challenge yourselves to inspire a brighter future. May your gathering reignite your spirit of solidarity. May it strengthen your love for this great institution. May it propel you toward building a legacy worthy of the next hundred years of Zion College.
As the applause rose and settled, what remained was not spectacle but purpose. Zion College is not merely an alma mater; it is an inheritance and a mandate. To be its product is to be its steward. To remember is to rebuild. To feel pride is to invest. Long live ZICO. Long live NAFRICANS. Long live Anlo Dukor. Long live the spirit of Zion College , rooted in memory, flowering in responsibility, and fruiting in futures yet to be written.
