Press: 2012 Peter Kelty

One of our alumni, Peter Kelty, made it into the Express/Advocate yesterday (11 July 2012) for teaching Tony Abbott how to make a whizz-bin.  Just how succesful Peter's teaching efforts were is unclear.  If the subject was mathematics, then he could have taught Tony Abbott that if the Carbon Tax was going to add $188,000 to Sulo's electricity bills, then they must spend nearly $2 million annually on electricity, and so an extra $188,000 isn't going to really send the company broke.

Thanks to the eagle-eyed David Falconer for letting me know about this one.  If you see any other news articles on any of our alumni, please let me know.  Here's the story.

Press: 2010 Mark Williams at Coffs Harbour

Following the policy of preserving newsworthy items and photos of our classmates, here's an article appearing in a Coffs Harbour newspaper in 2010 about Mark Williams:

Press: 2009 Peter Foley on the Ella Bache

Peter Foley (Year 12, 1982) has landed himself a position with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and occasionally has to front the media to give details of non-air transport incidents.

He's spoken about Jessica Watson's collision with a container ship on her way from Brisbane to Sydney to start her famous around-the-world trip.  Here's a news footage grab from 7 News on 20 Nov 2009:

He also appeared on national television when the Pasha Bulker ran aground at Nobby's Beach in July 2007.  Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get a recording going at that time (probably before I had a PVR anyway).

Press: 2009 Doug Carley



Photo courtesy of the Newcastle Herald

Oh, how the mightly have fallen.

No Gorokan High School blog would be complete without a mention of Doug Carley.  Remember him?  He transferred to Gorokan High from Cardiff in early 1979 and taught in the English Department.

He was Canadian, and thus one of his hobbies was Ice-Hockey.  He also participated in Basketball, Drama, Philosophy and was a general agitator for the common good.  He transferred away from Gorokan High the next year, citing the fact that all the rest of the staff had ostracised him.  This seemed to be a pattern with him, as his history shows him transferring to quite a number of high schools in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie area.

He joined the ALP and went on to get preselection as a Lake Macquarie councillor, eventually progressing  to become Mayor in 1991.  I can remember a Lake Macquarie Post article of the time depicting his father coming out from Canada to proudly see his son receive the Mayoral chain and robes.

In Easter 1993 he went to Fiji with a 15-year old youth called Derryck who supposedly referred to Doug as a "Dutch Uncle" (whatever that is).  After all the inuendo and speculation he resigned from the post of Mayor and went back to teaching.  It was at this point that he separated from and became divorced from his wife Judith - they used to live just up the road from me at Caves Beach and attended the Swansea branch of the ALP when I was frequenting it.

In 1996 he was placed on a three year good behaviour bond after being charged and convicted of indecently assaulting a fifteen year old boy who he coached at basketball.  Hopefully the education department came to their senses at this point and stopped hiring him as  a teacher.

In the intervening years he must have hit the skids, as he's popped up living in Fowler Street, Hamilton South, an inner-southern suburb of Newcastle.  For those who know Hamilton South it needs no repeating that it's an area of Public Housing - reasonably high density flats and villas, all occupied by people from a lower socio-economic status.

Well, just recently he's hit the newspapers again.  In 2009 he pleaded guilty to the aggravated indecent assault of a 12-year-old boy whilst living in the Fowler Street area.  I need type no further, for those of you interested in reading the links to the Newcastle Herald articles, here you go:

• Former Mayor on Sex Charge (10 Jan 2009)
• ex-Mayor guilty of indecent assault (25 Aug 2009)
• Former Mayor Sorry for Abuse (3 Oct 2009)



From Lake Macquarie Council Collection

He's also mentioned in Jeff Corbett's blog (Housing Children - 24 Sep 2009), and made The Australian in 2006 as the start of a string of ex-ALP Lake Macquarie councillors who seem to be into sex crimes (Doug Carley and Milton Orkopoulos (who actually gave me a lift home from a Swansea ALP branch meeting one night)).

He'll be out of gaol at the current point in time, and he was mentioning his intent to return to Canada.  I wonder whether they'll let him back in?

Press: 2002 Reunion Class of 1979 & 80 at the Beachcomber

On Saturday 5 October, 2002 a reunion for our year and the year before was held at the Beachcomber. It was organised by Darren Gates, Lisa Cook(nee Crawley), Deborah Swan, Ben Ratcliffe, Kim Salodine, Catrina Cowan, Cathy Crooks, Donna McMillan, Linda Cummings and Kerrie Gordon. (phew). It was a very successful night, with music from a couple of bands (Rockin' Horse and Quadravibe) in the "Underground" room of the Beachcomber, and we were able to breakout into the quiet area near the pool entrance (formerly called the Nautilus Bar) which allowed wistful conversations. There were a couple of newspaper articles on this re-union.

NB: if these images are a little too difficult to read, click on the image to get it up in a separate display.  You can then download the image by right-clicking it and selecting "Save Picture As".  You'll probably be able to see it better displayed on your own computer where you can scroll around and enlarge it with much more control than here on the blog.

Press: 1982 - Year 12 Leaves!!

Come the end of 1982, Year 12/1982 students actually stopped attending the school!  It's an amazing feeling after you've been going along to school for thirteen years and at this point you have no further obligation to do so.  We got together for a photograph and an article was written for the Tuggerah Lakes Advocate.  Here it is.  If anyone else has a copy that's not been in a "magnetic" photo album, I'd love to get a replacement for this slightly damaged article...  Incidentally attendance wasn't real good on this day, there are quite a few absences.

Press: 1980 Joseph

Here's the article from the Tuggerah Lakes Advocate published in advance of the opening of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.  Notice how (minor) errors of fact, which still plague the paper today, were evident in this article.  For instance they reported fact that the band Traction is "made-up of students from the school".  In reality only one member of Traction came from GHS, and that was the bass-player Chris Coble (vale), the others came from The Entrance High.

It's also unclear exactly which special prologue to the "play" (sic.) Mr Hibbard "wrote".  The paper refers to Joseph as "the father of Israel", whereas in my bible he actually IS called Israel (although I suppose you could make a case for this based on the definition of "father").  The paper also says "if you want to know how the story ends, you'll have to go and see the 'play'", where of course referring to numerous copies of the Bible that would be available is also another method.  Oh, and they spell "Potiphor" incorrectly, but we can perhaps forgive them for THAT!

Don't forget - to get a larger image of the picture you can click on the image.  To download it, right-click on the image and choose "Save TARGET As..." (NOT "Save Picture As").  To get an even larger image on-screen, right-click on it and choose "Open in New Window or Tab".  When the image opens in a new window or tab it will be scaled to fit into the window, however you can click on it, it will appear full size and you can scroll around in it for the absolute best visibility.

Press: 1977 Miss Foley appointed new principal

The blog would not be complete without starting with an article about the lady who started it all - Miss Gwen Foley.  This article is dated 1977, when the school moved into permanent buildings in Goobarabah Avenue.