Palmwoods
District News

October
1998

Page 9

Meet the new owner

WHILE Palmwoods District News’ new owner Ross Garrad’s family ties with the district go back to World War I times, Ross also sees Palmwoods as an ideal base for his Sunshine Coast internet site.

Ross’ great grand father moved to the area around World War I and his family still lives in the dstrict - and even has a road with the family name.

"There are still family living in the road (Garrard Road), and I hope they’ve complained bitterly about the mis-spelling,’’ said Ross.

Born and raised on a pineapple farm in McKees Road (formerly Parsons Knob Road), Ross went to the Palmwoods State School, then Nambour State High School before moving to Brisbane to study science at the Queensland University.

His first posting as a science teacher was back to his home district, at what was then called the Maleny State School secondary department in 1974.

In 1976 Ross headed to the far north of Queensland to Bamaga, which as a lover of travel, he found "a great experience’’. Ross also met and married his wife Janet (the English teacher/senior mistress and Ross’ boss at the time) during his two-year stint in the town.

The couple’s two daughters were born during their eight years in Mareeba, where again Ross taught at the high school.

He said it was in 1987, when he went to head office in Brisbane (Education Department) that he had his first and very useful experience with computers.

A teacher librarian course about this time added to his literary/research knowledge, followed by a Masters at Queensland University, which prompted him to become more deeply involved in the computer world.

Ross moved his talents to the computer section of the Bremer State High School (Ipswich) before taking leave to tackle his internet project. In fact his work setting up an intra-net program at the Bremer school led him to the development of his internet site on the Sunshine Coast early last year.

And while Ross is developing this site from Brisbane, he plans to move base to the Palmwoods area once his youngest daughter has completed her high school education.

Ross’ first link with the Palmwoods District News came through his internet project - "One of the things I did was look at publishing community newspapers (on the site). It (PDN) was the first community newspaper to go on Suncoast Online."

"I’m looking at moving the business base to Palmwoods district within a few years."

As far as the Palmwoods District News goes, Ross said he was hoping to build on what had been done during the past seven years - perhaps try to give it more of a focus on the whole district, from Woombye to Eudlo, while retaining the Palmwoods base.

"With the office opening (plans are on the drawing board to open an office in Kolora Place), I want to look at ways the office can be used to serve the community effectively. In the short term I’m interested in providing information for people to look at, like other community newspapers, government information that comes to us," he said.

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