Owens celebrate 55-year connection to TPS

With older sisters Erin and Fiona and teenager brother James in the crowd it was Hannah’s turn to end a seven-year relationship with the school where her father was a Prep student way back in 1970.

Twelve-year-old Hannah will now continue her education — and a family tradition — at Kyabram P-12 College.

The Owens’ eldest daughter, Erin, started in 1998, eldest son Tom was a year after that, then came Fiona (two years later) and Matt. All four were at the school at the same time and were often referred to as the “Owen quads”.

There was a break of several years before James, who finished Year 7 at Kyabram P-12 College this year, started at Tongala. And, finally, it was Hannah’s turn.

David graduated from Tongala Consolidated School (as it was known then) in 1976. Twenty-two years later his now 30-year-old daughter, Erin, started primary school.

David was at the school, for a short time, with both his two brothers — Bruce and Gary — with only five years separating the brothers.

He then continued on to Kyabram High School for a short time before ending his schooling at the then Echuca Technical School.

All the while the family lived on the same Wyuna East dairy farm that David and Janice have raised their six children on, which was previously owned by their English and Irish immigrant parents, Peter and Kath.

“We’ve been on the farm for 62 years,” David said.

The three brothers were sent to Tongala for their schooling because the bus stopped directly outside their home. They were among a dozen children from Wyuna that travelled to the school, which at the time had a student population of 350.

While the bus doesn’t stop right outside her door any more, Hannah has been travelling from Wyuna to Tongala for the past seven years.

Her mother was among 40 or 50 students that attended the now defunct Harston Primary School, the location of which forms a diamond with Stanhope, Girgarre and Tatura.

David recalled some of his teachers, Pat Church, Dick McGowan and John Hall, while the principal at the time was Bruce Andrews.

Now retired teacher Peter Tinning, who spent 40-plus years at the school, was also a student and David recalled “Mr Tinning” was leaving the school as David was arriving.

“Peter is the only teacher that has gone right through with all of our kids,” David said.

Mr Tinning isn’t the only familiar face though, school administrator Karen Vick (née Hutchison), was in the same graduating class as David Owen in the mid 1970s.

“I was also at school with Keith Pankhurst, Jim Hall and Brian Young,” he said.

“When we first brought Erin to the school, Karen was the face behind the desk in the office,” David said.

Three of the siblings remain in the company of their parents on a daily basis: Tom works on the farm with his father, while Hannah and James remain in the family home.

Erin and Fiona have not, however, gotten too far away from their primary school. They work right across the road in Purdey St — Erin as a personal care assistant at Respect Tongala and Fiona as a registered nurse.

And there remains a real chance that a third generation of Owens may yet continue the family’s association with the school.

“Tom has two kids, but he lives in Kyabram. They are only two and six months,” David said.

“At this stage that is it for the Owens and Tongala, but you never know down the track.”