A new home for the 92-year-old saddle with (L-R) Cherie Job, President of the Parkes & District Historical Society Bruce Hall, Ross Job and Nola Hando holding the original stirrups.

A 92-year-old saddle owned by a former president of the Goobang Shire has been returned to Parkes and donated to the Henry Parkes Museum.

James Ernest Job, known as Jim, was born in Molong in 1892. He married Dolly and they farmed Maroomba until 1950 when they sold it to Eric Job and retired in Peak Hill.

Jim bought a Hills patent saddle by PJ Talley from Cunningham Sydney that was made on 2nd June 1930. He bought the saddle for about 36 pounds, according to Jim’s grandson Ross Job.

Ross and Cherie Job from Ebenezer visited Parkes last week to donate the saddle to the Henry Parkes Museum where it will go on exhibition.

According to Ross another two saddles were made on the exact same day. The one was owned by Smokey Dawson and is on exhibition in the Longreach Hall of Fame, and the second one is in the Normington Museum.

Ross inherited the saddle from his father Hilton Job in 1963. He said he used it almost every day for about 20 years for campdrafting. In 1988 he took part in the bicentennial ride for about three weeks from Warwick over the Great Dividing Range to Towoomba.

Also present at the donation of the saddle to the museum was Nola Hando from Parkes. She is Jim’s daughter and Ross is her nephew. The saddle is two years older than Nola, and she can remember doing lots of horse riding on the farm as a child.

She said her father was associated with many committees over the years. Apart from being president of the Goobang Shire (now the Parkes Shire Council), he was also president of the Mungery School and the Peak Hill Show, volunteered for the bush fire brigade, served on the Farmers Settlers Association, and was a life member of the NSW Trot Club, Western District Trot Association and Peak Hill Trot Club.

The Parkes QUE Club donated a Digimaster 5000 Soundfield speaker with tripods and Roger touchscreen microphone transmitter to Trundle Central School. It will benefit every child in the classroom by providing an even distribution of sound between the speaker and the children. The teacher’s voice will be audible over any background noise, and it will assist children with impaired hearing. Assistant Principal Fiona Sanderson (left) received the donation from QUE members Colleen Mitchell, Kay Craft and Lyndall Bowen. If you would like to be involved in community service, join the QUE! Contact QUE on Facebook or email parkesqueclub@gmail.com.

Rhonda Brain reads to Barbie Bates (left) and Ro-byne Harrison from a special picture book about the Paint the Town REaD 100-day book relay across the country.

A big celebration is planned for an amazing idea that was born in Parkes and has spread across the whole of Australia.

Next year will be the 25th anniversary of Paint the Town REaD (PTTR), the annual reading day that involves the whole Parkes community with its philosophy of reading, talking, singing, drawing, playing with your children every day from birth to support early brain development. It is expected that 100 communities will be hosting a reading day this year from remote to urban communities in all states.

Last week founder of PTTR Rhonda Brain OAM welcomed the Executive Director of Paint the Town REaD Ltd Barbie Bates AOM and the NSW Co-ordinator Robyne Harrison to Parkes to look at the possibility of hosting PTTR’s 9th national conference in Parkes to coincide with the 25th reading day.

The PTTR delegation met with the Mayor and some Councillors last week to discuss the conference that is expected to be attended by up to 150 people from grassroots child and family workers, to librarians, early childhood directors and workers, through to policy makers.

“We see it as something really big, and we want to make it really big,” said Rhonda. “We would love to come here as Parkes is the birthplace of the model,” said Barbie.

Robyne said her first experience of a Parkes reading day really helped to give her a foundation of how to involve the community. “I am really hopeful that we can have the conference in Parkes so everyone can see how it’s done and to inspire them all.”