Volunteer legends Tony Long, Dr Ken Wishaw win top Sunshine Coast award

Two of the Sunshine Coast’s hardest working and most charitable senior citizens have been named Senior Citizen of the Year at the recent community awards.

Dr Ken Wishaw and Tony Long both won Senior Citizen of the Year at Sunshine Coast Biosphere Community Awards.

Two of the Sunshine Coast’s hardest working and most charitable senior citizens have been honoured by their community.

For their tireless volunteer work, Tony Long and Dr Ken Wishaw were both named Senior Citizen of the Year at the Sunshine Coast Biosphere Community Awards 2025.

Through his volunteer leadership and work in roles across education, emergency services, transport planning and Rotary, Mr Long has helped shape the Sunshine Coast for more than 50 years.

Over the decades, he helped establish several local hubs including the Sunshine Coast Turf Club, Currimundi Community Kindergarten and the Sunshine Coast Stadium.

As a member of the Sunshine Coast Health Foundation’s board, Mr Long also secured major funding for the Wishlist Centre.

Sunshine Coast Council stated he was awarded Citizen of the Year to recognise his “legacy of tireless service, community building, and transformative regional development”.

Joint recipient of the award Dr Wishaw has spent decades innovating and pioneering emergency medicine to save lives across Australia and beyond.

After serving as Australia’s first full-time rescue helicopter physician with the Surf Lifesaving Association in 1982, Dr Wishaw completed specialty training in anaesthesia and intensive care in 1986.

That same year, he co-founded CareFlight, a lifesaving aeromedical charity that became “the first true intensive care retrieval service in the world”, Mr Wishaw said.

He later served in the Australian Air Force and Army Reserves for 14 years, serving in Australia and abroad.

Dr Wishaw treating a young Afghani in 2009.

While acting as head of trauma and resuscitation in Afghanistan in 2009, Dr Wishaw pioneered new approaches to severe trauma that saved countless lives.

After retiring from clinical practice in 2016, Mr Wishaw went back to university to complete a postgraduate certificate in astronomy and astrophysics and later co-founded the Australasian Dark Sky Alliance in 2019.

“I realised I took seeing stars for granted,” he said.

“With the world’s light pollution, it’s actually a rarity to see stars.

“90 per cent of the world’s population lives under light polluted skies.

From animal preservation, human health and environmental sustainability, protecting dark skies is so important, Dr Wishaw said.

“Australia was found by navigating the stars,” he said.

“It has enormous Aboriginal heritage, in terms of song lines, so much of their history they reflect in things they see in the sky at night, such as the dark emu and various stories they tell and pass on from generation to generation.”

“The stars are kind of a record that stays constant for us.”

In “retirement”, Dr Wishaw advises councils, helps protect endangered turtles, organises stargazing events, and educates Sunshine Coast locals on the hinterland’s starry skies.

Sunshine Coast Council said Dr Wishaw’s “global recognition and local advocacy make him a leader in sustainability and science education” and a perfect recipient of the award.

Dr Wishaw said it was “very flattering” to win Citizen of the Year.

“I moved up here in 1990… and I think it was the best decision I ever made in my life,” he said.

“I just wanted to put something back to thank the Sunshine Coast for the great life it’s provided me and my family.

“To actually have it recognised was very humbling.”

Originally published as Volunteer legends Tony Long, Dr Ken Wishaw win top Sunshine Coast award