We are very pleased to announce that Barbara Bow, erstwhile secretary to the Historical Society, has agreed to accept the position of the society’s patron.
It is an honour for the society to be able to so recognise Barbara’s 30 years of dedicated and sterling service, and also a way for the society to express its gratitude and appreciation to one of its longest-standing and most dependable members. If Barb is not in the museum first on Sunday or Wednesday, we know something major is keeping her away.
Barbara joined the society in 1993, when she retired from teaching, and immediately launched into making herself useful, learning the mysteries of archiving and becoming intimately familiar with the society’s extensive archive of printed and photographic material, as a result of which she is the go-to person for researchers, volunteers and the merely curious. Barb became secretary in 1995, a position she has occupied with commitment and good humour, relinquishing it only upon accepting the patronship.
After growing up in Townsville and Mackay, Barb studied at the then Kelvin Grove Teachers College and began teaching in 1954, on her 21st birthday. She taught in Mackay, Moura and other country centres. Her final school was Boondall, where she taught for 23 years. She has educated generations of children and she has continued that vocation in her outreach work with the museum, being a mainstay of the society’s work in bringing the delights of history to groups of school children both at the museum and in schools.
We are proud to have such a stalwart and talented patron, and are very appreciative of all that she has contributed to the Historical Society and Museum.