Golden anniversary year heralded in with cake cutting ceremony

While the intake on Monday was very different in many respects – young women outnumbered the young men enrolling by a ratio of 7 to 1, the only ties in evidence were holding back hair, and many of the courses on offer are six months long – the education facility’s core principles remain the same, according to the people overseeing its wellbeing.

They include the man in charge of the college’s horse program, John Arnold, himself a graduate from the mid-1970s.

“It was seen by far-sighted people as a way of producing young people with practical skills, either for the family property or big company properties,” John said.

“As far as that goes, nothing’s changed there. The bush still needs people with good basic skills.

“While there’s a shortage of workers, there’s still a place for the college.”

College board chairman Richard Pietsch said there was plenty to be happy about.

“Anything that lasts for 50 years is a cause to celebrate,” he said.

“Thousands of students have been trained here, and the future is bright.

“Longreach is first and foremost sheep country, and a real rejuvenation has come about with exclusion fencing.

“The lesson learnt from this dreadful drought is that sheep are a much easier animal to care for in a drought.”

Rosemary Champion was one of those participating in the 50^th anniversary cake cutting, for whom the day had a special meaning. It was her father, Sir James Walker, together with his brother Lloyd Walker, who dreamed of establishing a “university of the outback”.

Rosemary reminisced that the college, the first of its kind established in Queensland, was erected the same year that a state high school began in Longreach, an indication of the big change in opportunities offered by their presence.

“Before that, kids left school and went into sheds or shops. Or under the jackaroo system, they might have got to a manager’s position when they were 50,” she said.

Sitting in the board room, with her father’s portrait staring down, she said she felt the importance of following the dream he had begun.

The college’s maximum intake in its “glory days” was 120 students.

“They took one person in every five who applied,” Rosemary said. “It was like getting into uni to do medicine these days.

“I’d love to see us go back to the glory days and be world leaders in sheep and wool, and demonstrate best practice.

“Our logo is a ram’s head; it’s what we were built on.”

Rosemary recalled taking a stand with Ann Barrett and Liz Duncan in 1979, approaching the all-male board to make the case for the admission of females.

“We took them on. They gave us permission to speak,” she said.

“The student council, all young men, sided with the board. They didn’t think girls did agriculture either, but we felt strongly there was a place for women in the pastoral industry.”

John Arnold agreed, saying “a good girl runs rings around a bloke” in the rural work arena, “in cleanliness, responsibility, and kindness to animals”.

College board member Katrina Paine, Winton, was busy settling in her own daughter, Ella on Monday.

A graduate of the Longreach School of Distance Education and The Glennie School in Toowoomba, Ella has been in the workforce for the past two years, working in the Northern Territory and at Boulia.

She said an interest in developing her riding skills had prompted her to enrol in the certificate III in horsemanship and breeding.

“Being a six-month course, it means I can still get a job and apply my skills at the end of it,” she said. “I’m self-funded so time is important.”

Katrina said the college had developed some great connections with tertiary institutions to broaden their offering, and was “at the cusp of a lot of opportunities”.

“I got involved in 2010 when a group of local graziers wanted to re-form the advisory board, because I really value education,” she said.

“We’ve got fantastic facilities here, and agriculture is such an important part of the economy – you put them together and away you go.”

Katrina said the college still needed financial support to make its mark, and organisations wanting it to be in existence.

“Student numbers are key,” she said. “Our part is making sure we deliver what industry wants.”

The college and the Longreach Pastoral College Past Students and Staff Association are collaborating to conduct a reunion event for all past students and staff from 22-24 September.

This will be a highlight of the golden anniversary year and the past students and staff, for whom the college is mostly regarded with happy memories.

The Longreach Pastoral College received congratulations from Agriculture Minister Bill Byrne on its 50th anniversary.

“It’s a great milestone for an institution that has helped thousands of young Queenslanders to prepare for a working life on the land,” the minister said.

“Longreach was one of the state’s first agriculture training colleges, welcoming its first students on February 6, 1967.                                               

“For five decades graduates have helped Queensland’s farms to be productive and to embrace the latest methods and technologies and that is a fantastic achievement.”

Mr Byrne said the college was now a key part of the Queensland Agricultural Training Colleges’ organisation and still adapting to satisfy the needs of students and employers in a fast-changing environment.

“Many students have engaged in varied careers in the sector, particularly in the arid pastoral production zone and the college continues to deliver rural skills training to young people from Queensland and all other parts of the nation,” he said.

“I want to add my congratulations to all those who have played a role in the success of the institution for the last 50 years.

“QATC continues to plan for a future in which the college can continue to develop and deliver high quality and relevant training for the sector and for those young Queenslanders who will spend their lives working in it.”