Third Time Lucky In the years following the closure of the second South Brisbane school, several Adventist schools had been established on Brisbane’s northside and in a number of country centres. But Adventist parents in the expanding suburbs south of the Brisbane River were still denied the provision of Adventist schooling for their children. Many felt uncomfortable with this state of affairs. Delegates to the 1962 Queensland Conference session therefore did two things: they affirmed the importance of Christian education; and they empowered the Conference Executive Committee to establish new schools within the Conference. Hopefully one of these would be located south of the Brisbane River. This mandate was taken seriously by the Conference administrators and the Executive Committee. A search for a suitable parcel of land led to a nine-acre (3.64 hectares) lot located on Broadwater Road, Mt Gravatt. Deemed suitable for a school, the land was purchased and Adventist builder-architect, Evan Coulston was commissioned to draw the plans for and to construct a school to consist of three-classrooms, a library and an administrative office. Coulston not only delivered the foregoing, but by using the slope of the land to advantage, was able to provide the school with covered play space under the high-set building.
Coulston also effected savings wherever he could and this included the use of voluntary labour provided by the members of Adventist churches on the Southside. The cost of the initial building was therefore a very modest $40 000. The Southside Adventist Primary School opened its doors to scholars at the beginning of the 1966 school year. With three classrooms, the new school had a notional enrolment potential of 120 students, that is, forty students per classroom. It was expected that the school would commence as a two-teacher school with an initial enrolment of about fifty scholars. In fact eighty-five fronted up to be founding students of the new school. A third teacher was quickly procured. The first teachers were Mr Alex Lowe, headmaster, Ms Gem Blank and Ms Marion Gibbons (Mrs Marion Shields). The official opening of the school took place on 6 February 1966. This proved a gala occasion with over 400 persons present. It was also an opportunity for good Adventist public relations and the Queensland media—television, press and radio—were all present. It was reported that these various media each gave excellent coverage of the event in their evening presentations. The official party consisted of Pastor David Sibley and Dr Geoffrey Rosenhain, from the Trans-Tasman Union Conference, and Pastor Keith Parmenter and Mr Oliver Twist, president and secretary-treasurer respectively of the Queensland Conference (in 1968 to be renamed the South Queensland Conference). Dr Rosenhain gave the official address in which he emphasised that “True religion is concerned with the development of the whole man, physical, mental, and spiritual, therefore it is impossible to separate education from religion, for it is an integral part of it.” Dr Rosenhain also had the privilege of cutting the ribbon and declaring the school officially open. The school did not long keep its Southside name. In fact the Minutes of the first School Board meeting were headed, “The Adventist Church School, Mount Gravatt.” Within a short time the school was being referred to as Mt Gravatt, reflecting its geographical location. By 1967 the record of School Board affairs were simply “Minutes of the Mount Gravatt Church School.” There is no evidence in those same minutes of any formal action to re-name the school Mt Gravatt Seventh-day Adventist Primary School.
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