{"id":102455,"date":"2015-04-14T19:29:05","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T09:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=102455"},"modified":"2020-11-13T16:48:47","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T06:48:47","slug":"business-legacy-keeps-on-giving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/04\/14\/business-legacy-keeps-on-giving\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Legacy Keeps On Giving"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Cheryl Thompson, at rear, watches school students learn to make coffee at her family\u2019s Ridgee Didge Caf\u00e9 in Barcaldine (Photo: Marcus Priaulx)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

April 14, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Marcus Priaulx<\/strong>
\nBarambah PaCE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

David and Carrie Thompson would never have guessed their legacy would extend to helping children get a better education when they started their fencing business in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Nor would 14-year-old Cherbourg girl Jennifer White have ever guessed the pivotal role she would play in this when she was sent to Barcaldine to work as a domestic many decades ago.<\/p>\n

Over the decades the Thompsons built several family enterprises in and around the outback Queensland town.<\/p>\n

These included buying and running cattle properties, contract fencing, fuelling the town\u2019s electricity supply with charcoal burning, catering, and owning and operating a caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

David and Carrie’s son, Davey, met and married Jennifer several years after she arrived in Barcaldine and soon involved her in the family’s many enterprises.<\/p>\n

And now Davey and Jennifer’s daughter, Cheryl, is using her assets and those of the family businesses to support the Alice River Aboriginal Student Hostel she created 15 months ago.<\/p>\n

Through her passion for education and knowledge from being a teacher for 20 years, Cheryl is using the hostel to ensure children from remote communities are getting the education they need to succeed in life.<\/p>\n

They wake up, have breakfast, walk to Barcaldine\u2019s Prep-to-Year 12 State school, come home, wash their uniforms, have afternoon tea, do homework and are in bed by 9.30pm.<\/p>\n

Phones and laptops are handed in and only allowed for a couple of hours each afternoon.<\/p>\n

On weekends the children work in Cheryl\u2019s family-owned Ridgee Didge Caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

If there are issues within the group they are brought to the fore and settled within yarning circles.<\/p>\n

When at the hostel, the 13-17-year-olds attend school every day.<\/p>\n

And if they\u2019re late returning from holidays, Cheryl goes and gets them.<\/p>\n

This was done with the parents\u2019 blessing last year as they had initially left country in Boulia, Camooweal and Mt Isa to bring the children to Longreach State High School.<\/p>\n

To do so, they had to live in overcrowded housing to afford the move and their teenagers often refused to go to school if they didn\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cheryl was living a comfortable lifestyle in Wynnum, Brisbane, at the time but heard of the situation and \u201cthe old people\u201d from her Iningai tribe called her back.<\/p>\n

When Cheryl arrived she spoke with the parents. She then helped them to enrol their children into school and register for Abstudy so they could pay for their school expenses.<\/p>\n

Then things clicked into place and friend, David Osbourne, told her of dongas for sale at Bond University on the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

Cheryl bought three and they sit close to the home her grandparents built more than half a century ago.<\/p>\n

They have four bedrooms, ensuite bathrooms, a common room and air conditioning.<\/p>\n

Last year they housed a total of 10 girls and boys.<\/p>\n

This year they\u2019ll have eight girls and 12 boys from Boulia, Camooweal, Urandanjie, Alpurrurulum (Lake Nash) and Mt Isa.<\/p>\n

She has also employed two people from Boulia to act as house parents.<\/p>\n

Cheryl now plans to develop a recreation spot for the children to play table tennis, basketball, pool, or do activities such as their homework, or programmes with the ambulance, town\u2019s services or community organisations.<\/p>\n

The idea is to open the facility up for other children within the Barcaldine district and for it to become known as a \u201ckids club\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know schools have attendance officers, homework clubs, counsellors\u2026 but they all work in silos,\u201d Cheryl said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a hostel we can bring them all together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can get the children up, make sure they have breakfast, support their educational needs and ensure their home life centres around school, getting active and doing sport<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also able to work with the parents while we do this job.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In five years Cheryl believes she will have children graduating from school and eventually returning to their communities as teachers, butchers, bakers, mechanics and nurses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see them orbiting back to country as I have,\u201d she said<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about that all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want them to go back home and fill those positions. It\u2019s not pretend stuff. This is what they can do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can support them because we have knowledge of business through our family and can pass it onto them. That is the job of Knowledge Keepers of Business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheryl said when the children\u2019s parents came to the hostel and saw what their children were doing it opened their eyes to the same possibilities.<\/p>\n

She also trusts in her \u2018Old People\u2019s\u2019 spirits and believes their calling her home was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad, Davey, would be looking at this and saying \u2018bloody beautiful\u2019,\u201d Cheryl said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI live in the house he built with his father so they\u2019re guiding me to the work I\u2019m doing through their spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Remote community children that live at Cheryl Thompson’s indigenous student hostel get ready for another deadly day at Barcaldine\u2019s P-12 school (Photo: Marcus Priaulx)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David and Carrie Thompson would never have guessed their legacy would extend to helping children get a better education when they started their fencing business in the 1950s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":102872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1135],"yoast_head":"\nBusiness Legacy Keeps On Giving - southburnett.com.au<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/04\/14\/business-legacy-keeps-on-giving\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Business Legacy Keeps On Giving - southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David and Carrie Thompson would never have guessed their legacy would extend to helping children get a better education when they started their fencing business in the 1950s.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/04\/14\/business-legacy-keeps-on-giving\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-14T09:29:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-11-13T06:48:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/20150411-cheryl1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"385\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dafyd Martindale\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dafyd Martindale\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/04\/14\/business-legacy-keeps-on-giving\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/04\/14\/business-legacy-keeps-on-giving\/\",\"name\":\"Business Legacy Keeps On Giving - 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