ON weekends Christine Hills can be found on her cattle property while during the week she has a hectic schedule as principal to 1600 students at Gladstone State High School.
With her husband Brian, Ms Hills owns 1618 hectares along the Dawson River, 12km south of Moura, and together they have four children aged seven to 14.
Over the years, she has manoeuvred herself and the kids throughout central Queensland while working at a number of different schools and keeping the farm as their home base.
Life is busy enough for Ms Hills as a mother of four, yet she has still found time to apply for and accept the position as principal of Rockhampton Girls Grammar School.
"It makes for a busy life but it is worth it in the long run for the opportunities for my kids," she said.
"It is not about getting out of your home town or rural town you live in," Ms Hills said.
"It is about getting out and utilising what is around you.
"It is about having the capacity to make a difference where you are."
In 2008, Ms Hills thought she had hit the ultimate jackpot when she was offered the principal's position at Moura State School.
"One of the biggest thrills in my life was when I got my first principal's position at Moura," she said.
"I thought, oh my God, I never would have thought I would become a principal.
"There are days I walk around people at school and think, they let me run this?"
Leaving the small school at Moura in 2013, Ms Hills made the move to the big smoke of Rockhampton, where she was principal of Glenmore State School.
A lower socio-economic school, Glenmore's academic standards were lifted during Ms Hills' time there, positioning the school above the national benchmark for literacy and numeracy.
"I learnt a lot at Glenmore," she said.
"It is a school of children who are so willing to work with the teachers and to make more of themselves."
Within the past five years, Ms Hills has been to Harvard, Thursday Island and Singapore as well as presenting on Indigenous education, working with school systems in Sydney, working with Australian Education Council research team and receiving national excellence in teaching for the primary leadership award and Australian Council of Education awards.
"Never would I have thought five years ago when I was this little principal in a country town, I would have achieved all these things," Ms Hills said.
"I was surprised I even survived the first three years of my teaching career.
"I remember being a 20-year-old in Emerald, teaching Year 12.
"Some of them were 18. I was shocked they let me teach," Ms Hills said.
"I had no idea what I was doing but I thought I was good at what I did and that I was a good teacher."
Having worked in education for 25 years now, Ms Hills has touched the lives of many students and fellow teachers with whom she keeps a close relationship.
"I am very driven in what I do; I have a very strong need to make a difference for kids and I probably almost do that at the expense of other things in my life."
Her first school was at Emerald and she has since worked in Moura, Theodore, Rockhampton and Gladstone.
She grew up in the Toowoomba region and went to Concordia Lutheran private school, and has been a farmer's wife for almost 20 years and considers herself to be a country girl.
"Moving to Emerald as a 20-year-old graduate from Brisbane,I had never been west of Toowoomba at that stage; I learnt to stand on my own two feet and be independent," Ms Hills said.
"It has taught me how to speak to people and meet people from other walks of life."
With her two eldest children now at boarding school in Rockhampton, Ms Hills is looking forward to working in that environment as both principal and parent.
"I have seen boarding as a parent and I need to reflect on what I would like changed," Ms Hills said.
"Boarding school needs to be more than somewhere you stay when you are not at home and that is what I plan on working on at Rockhampton Girls Grammar school while I am there."
Rockhampton Girls Grammar school will mark Ms Hill's first move in her career over to the private school sector from public education.
"With Girls Grammar, I am going to need to get to know all those kids, and the boarders - where they come from in those little communities, whether it be Rolleston, Emerald, Longreach, Theodore or Clermont."
Ms Hills is set to start her principal's position at Rockhampton Girls Grammar school from term one in 2016 and will be bringing her youngest daughter, Clare, 7, with her.
"I am really looking forward to being a part of something that has such great history," said Ms Hills.
"I am excited for a new challenge and to contribute to the next generation of strong women."