Somerset Lifetimes 2020

38 YEARS OF Service

I heard about this proposal from a newspaper cutting sent to me while I was living in Sydney. The article included an address so I wrote to say I was interested in applying for a job. The reply informed me that the land for the school hadn’t been bought, but that they would communicate when it had. About a month later I was interviewed in a hotel in Sydney and was offered a position; however, there were still so many factors to consider, one of which was when the school would open. The Christmas holidays 1982 came and each time I went for a drive out into the Hinterland I saw that no construction had started. The sign board was intriguing though because the spelling of Somerset seemed to change. In fact, it took three goes to get it right. It was decided the school was to open in January 1983 and so it was with great relief that a few weeks after the New Year a brick building was constructed. Our junior classrooms arrived on the back of a truck; they were demountables which were the change rooms at the Commonwealth Games. These were put in position about two weeks before the school was to open and were placed on the hill which is where our Great Hall stands today. In the last week before the school opened, we all pitched in to lay turf and generally clean up. Someone mowed the

FAREWELL TO EILEEN WHEELER It was the vision of Rod Wells, the first Headmaster, that he would open a private co-ed school on the coast.

38 Years of Service

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Eileen (second from right) on Queensland Federation Day, Founders’ Day, 1985