34: VIDEO DIDN’T KILL RADIO STAR
1968
IT was 42 years ago in 1968 that Gold Coast radio station 4GG hit the airwaves.
Its first on-air voice was Frank Warrick. During the 1970s and 80s, under the leadership of then general manager Barry, 4GG was considered a leader in personality and ‘star power’ broadcasting.
Liberace, Tom Jones, Phyllis Dyler, Noel Ferrier, Daryl Summers and Andy Williams all visited the station. The original licence still lives on as Gold FM.
33: SURF’S IRON MAN HERO
HE is one of Australia’s sporting greats, inducted into the Australian, Gold Coast and Surf Lifesaving Halls of Fame.
He is a five-time Australian open ironman champion, a four-time Uncle Toby’s Super Series winner, and a four-time world ironman champion.
Just as importantly, in 1996 Trevor Hendy showed a modicum of acting ability when he and the rest of the Uncle Toby’s ironmen appeared on US television hit series Baywatch.
He entered his first surfing competition in 1976. From surf he went into kayaking and seemed set for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, but in 1998 he retired from that as well.
As one of our greatest ironman he earned more from the sport than anyone else. In one year alone that was more than $1 million. But in 2000 he was declared bankrupt.
32: TITANIC EFFORT
2007
When the Chargers were booted from the top flight in 1998, the region was starved of top footy. Regional teams Burleigh and Tweed competed in the Queensland Cup and fed players to NRL clubs but it wasn’t the same.
However, behind the scenes, former Seagulls second rower and accountant Michael Searle and long-time league identity Paul Broughton had been striving towards getting another team into the NRL.
Finally in 2007, the Titans took the field and in 2009 the club had its best finish — third.
31: TERROR IN OUR CANALS
FEBRUARY, 2003
IN February 2003 family and friends of Australian lawn bowls legend Bob Purcell watched as three bull sharks, measuring between 1.6m-2.2m, were hauled from Burleigh Lake.
It was just two days after Mr Purcell had been mauled to death by bull sharks while paddling across the lake.
It was the second fatal shark attack in as many months on the Gold Coast. Beau Martin, 23, was killed by a shark in December in Miami Lake which is part of the same canal system.
30: ARR TO BE SURE
2015
February 2015 and cameras start rolling on the Coast for the fifth instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The Coast can’t get enough of Pirates, Johnny Depp and Amber — and their dogs. The multi-million dollar blockbuster is a boon for the Coast and its film industry.
29: FLYING HIGH
1936-PRESENT DAY
Originally, Coolangatta Airport was three grass strips with the intention of providing an emergency landing ground for airport flying between Brisbane and Gold Coast.
But in 1939, passenger flights took off for the first time. Since then the airport has changed its name to Gold Coast Airport and in 1990, the airport welcomed its first international charter — a plane from New Zealand.
28: VACCINE WIN
2001
MENINGOCOCCAL is a silent, cunning killer.
There are few rules when it comes to the disease, apart from early detection being most vital.
The bacteria does not discriminate between young and old and manifests itself in several forms.
Many people carry the germ and never show any symptoms.
However, it is highly communicable, being spread by kissing, sneezing or coughing. It also can be picked up from swimming pools and bed linen.
In 2001, The Gold Coast Bulletin campaigned to have the meningococcal vaccine distributed free.
Twenty-five people died from it during 2002 but health officials still refused to act. In 2003, the State Government finally made the vaccine freely available.
27: BYPASS BLESSING
June 1, 2008
WHEN the $543 million Tugun bypass opened on June 1, 2008, no NSW Labor politicians were invited to the official opening.
After all, the NSW Government contributed nothing financially to the project and had it been a little more proactive, the bypass may well have been opened four years earlier.
The 7km project, which passes to the west of Coolangatta, was keenly sought.
It was estimated that in its first month of operation, more than 100,000 fewer trucks rumbled through Tugun.
26: IN BOND WE TRUST
IN 1986 West Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond could do no wrong.
The former sign-writer was Australian of the Year in 1978, won the America’s Cup in 1983, and owned Channel 9 Brisbane and the Fourex Brewery.
In 1986 the late Alan Bond decided it was time for another challenge.
Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen announced Bond Corporation would build a $125 million private university on a 234ha site on the Burleigh Forest Estate.
The Federal Government initially turned down Bond Corporation’s plan to establish the university on the Gold Coast.
Permission was finally granted and the university accepted its first students in 1989 and is now regarded as one of Australia’s leading private tertiary institutions.
25: TSS GROWS STRONG
1901
IN 1901, The Southport School opened for its first students.
While the school now dominates a bend of the Nerang River in Southport, the first classes were held in the White Street home of its founder, Bishop Henry Horace Dixon, at Southport.
It would not be until 1909 that the first boarding houses would be built to accommodate the students.
The clock tower, which stands today, was built in 1926 and was the pride of Bishop Dixon, although it left the school in debt for years.
24: THE St HILDA’S STORY
1912
HELENA Davenport was an unlikely businesswoman.
A product of Victorian England, she came to Australia with her mother in the 1870s aboard a sailing ship and settled in Ipswich. She believed in equality for women in education, economy and politics.
Miss Davenport and her mother started a boarding school for young ladies at Ipswich and after a short time decided to transfer the school to Southport.
By 1911, Miss Davenport’s sight began to fail and in 1912 she sold the school to the Anglican Church — that school was St Hilda’s
23: VERSACE GLAMOUR
2000-PRESENT DAY
Palazzo Versace became the first fashion-branded hotel when it opened its doors 15 years ago.
Versace has 200 hotel rooms, three restaurants and a 90-berth marina. celebrity guests make a habit of staying at Versace — from the Stones through to U2 — and locals couldn’t get enough of “souveniring” the hotel’s teaspoons featuring a Medusa head.
22: RIGHT TRACK
1963-1995
ALMOST 20 years after the old Gold Coast railway lines were ripped up, the Bjelke-Petersen government announced plans for $233.5 million rail link to Brisbane.
In 1983 transport minister Don ‘Shady’ Lane laid out plans for the line with four possible stations at Ormeau, Coomera, Helensvale and Nerang and a final stop at a point just south of the Surfers Paradise golf course.
It would take another 13 years for the Coast to get its rail link.
Track laying began in September 1994 and in December 1995 the new state transport minister Jim Elder announced the track would be formally opened on February 25.
21: NAME GAME
SURFERS Paradise came about almost by accident three quarters of a century ago.
In 1889, a small hotel among the sandhills at what is now Surfers Paradise was declared an official postal receiving office called Elston.
It was named by the postmaster in Southport after his wife’s home village in England.
At the start of World War I, a Brisbane real estate agent had a pegged-out area there called Pacific Ocean Estate and by 1917 the Brisbane real estate company, Arthur Blackwood Ltd, offered for sale the `Surfers Paradise Estate’.
But it was surveyor Thor Jensen who inspired the name while working on the dunes.
“You know, this is a real surfer’s paradise,’’ he said.
The next to use the term was publican Jim Cavill, who built and named his pub the Surfers Paradise Hotel in 1925. Then the nearby Surfers Paradise Surf Life Saving Club was built in 1928 by Cavill’s mate, Charlie Walsh.
But the Lands Department stuck with Elston and at one stage even tried to rename the settlement Sea Glint.
But after pressure from Cavill, Walsh, alderman Vince Whelan and Cec Hack, the department approved the name Surfers Paradise on December 1, 1933.
20: SMALL BUT BIG PLANS
SIR Bruce Small’s mayoral campaign slogan was ‘Think Big, vote Small’ and he used it to become mayor of the Gold Coast from 1967-1973 and 1976-1978.
Small had lived in Melbourne where he owned the Malvern Star bicycle company. He became a colourful Gold Coast property developer and developed the Isle of Capri and Sorrento.
In 1967 he became a national icon when he joined forces with the Surfers Paradise Meter Maids on a campaign trail promoting the Gold Coast to attract tourists back to the city’s storm-ravaged beaches.
19: FAMILY TIES
FEW names are as synonymous with the Gold Coast area as that of Veivers.
Their story starts when three brothers Robert, David and John arrived from Scotland in 1859.
Searching for timber, they eventually set up a logging business on the Nerang River.
Although the Veivers brothers were very early pioneers, their legacy runs on thanks to their combined 24 children.
In the past 150 years, Veivers offspring have served in local politics, built up important businesses and generally been all-round top citizens.
During the 1960s, Tom Veivers played international cricket for Australia, Greg Veivers played rugby league for Queensland and Australia in the 1970s and Phil Veivers played league in Australia and England where he featured in the 1987 Challenge Cup Final for St Helens.
Keeping the link with league going, Patricia Veivers married former Brisbane Broncos and now St George coach Wayne Bennett.
Mick Veivers played league for Queensland and Australia in the 1960s before becoming a popular political figure and winning the state seat of Southport for the National Party in 1987.
18: DOOHAN A WHEEL CHAMP
At his peak there was no one faster on a 500cc motorbike than Mick Doohan.
Doohan ruled the world of MotoGP racing, scoring an amazing five consecutive world titles from 1994 to 1998.
In 117 GP starts, Doohan had 54 wins, 98 podiums and started from pole 58 times.
Doohan has turned his racing enthusiasm to business interests including aviation and property. Hollywood A-listers often rent his house at Coomera.
17: NEW ERA FOR STUDENTS
1975
IN 1975, the first lecture was delivered at Griffith University’s Nathan campus — one of the first fee-free universities in the country.
It’s Gold Coast campus opened in 1990 and now boasts over 18,000 students and has become the epicentre of the Coast’s health and knowledge precinct.
16: SURF’S UP
AS far as surfing is concerned you couldn’t write a better story.
Two mates from Coolangatta battle for the surfing world title, a crown only one can wear.
For Mick Fanning — the 2009 world champion — and Joel Parkinson this is what the season came down to.
Parkinson was the runaway tour leader last year before his season was derailed by an ankle injury, allowing Fanning to amass enough points to claim his second title.
It was a year in which Gold Coast surfers truly dominated the waves.
Fanning took world title honours ahead of Parkinson with Currumbin-based Bede Durbidge in third.
15: SUPER STEPH
The Gold Coast surfing queen can lay claim to being one of the sport’s greats — world champion in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014.
After winning her third world title, Gilmore was named the 2009 World Action Sportsperson of the Year at the star-studded Laureus Awards in Abu Dhabi.
Gilmore was the first Australian to win a Laureus Award since seven-time world surfing champion Layne Beachley in 2004.
A savage assault outside her unit in 2010 saw ‘Happy’ Gilmore reassess life but battle her way back with courage and determination that defines a sporting champion.
14: ROAD AHEAD
IT was the road the Gold Coast deserved. For many years day-trippers and holiday-makers from Brisbane rattled down the old Gold Coast Highway to the holiday mecca, accepting that long delays were part and parcel of the trip.
But in March 1996, the newly elected Borbidge government decided that would change.
“In 1995 the Goss government announced it would build a toll road through Daisy Hill and there was a huge backlash,’’ said former premier Rob Borbidge.
“We announced a proposal to upgrade the existing road corridor that was fully funded.’’
That road was the Pacific Motorway.
In 1998 Borbidge was facing an election he was unlikely to win.
“I was determined that, should we lose the election, no one could overturn that decision,’’ he said. “
“So we decided on all the tenders at the final executive meeting of that government.’’
The motorway opened — behind schedule and over budget — but Mr Borbidge said he was proud of the achievement.
13: CRUISE SHIP ANGER
2005-PRESENT
IN 2005 no plan divided the Gold Coast like the proposed cruise ship terminal.
The idea for a cruise ship terminal first came to light in May 2002 when politicians realised it probably wasn’t great for cruise passengers to put ashore at the unspectacular Fisherman Island in the muddy Brisbane River or the quiet suburb of Hamilton.
Tourism Minister Merri Rose told the Australian Tourism Exchange that Premier Peter Beattie wanted a cruise ship terminal for the Gold Coast.
The proposal set the city alight, with half the community loving the idea of thousands of wealthy tourists docking on the Coast, while the other half pointed out the Spit would become a no-go zone for locals and the Broadwater would be polluted.
But after enthusiastically backing the terminal for years, the government canned the idea just weeks before the 2006 election.
Ten years on and the debate continues.
12: FROM POW TO YOGA GURU
ROMA Blair’s life has endured more twists than one of her daily 90-minute yoga routines.
At 17, she became Australia’s first proxy bride, a Dutch custom in which relatives can stand in for an absent bride or groom.
Blair had been living with her new husband in Java for just three months when she became a prisoner of war during World War II, interned by the Japanese Army.
At 18, she gave birth to her son, Arnold, in the prison camp on a steel table and with no medical aid apart from a Japanese midwife.
She became a household name in Australia after 14 years on TV with her show Relaxing with Roma, for which she often wore her now trademark leopard-print leotard.
With a small committee, she has helped to raise more than $500,000 for the Queensland Institute of Medical Research.
Ms Blair died in 2013.
11: RUNNING OUT OF PUFF
1964
WITH a puff of smoke, and amid much controversy, the final steam train left Southport railway station on July 1, 1964.
The station began operating 120 years ago on the western side of Scarborough Street between Nind and Railway streets.
The railway became a source of employment and brought in tourists. It also attracted interest from businessmen, with the Railway Hotel opening in 1889. The hotel still stands.
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