Long-serving Gold Coast City councillor Dawn Crichlow says she’s had a varied, fun and funny life. Her talents and business skills have been put to use in areas such as taxidermy, racehorse training, horse breeding, and operating florist shops, hair salons, a sandwich bar and boutique fashion stores.

Each venture was completed within a self-imposed, three-year target. All that is except for the council job.

First elected in 1991, Crichlow’s cause was the dismantling of the Southport Mall because of its negative impact on local traders. She also called for increased accountability on council spending.

Crichlow, the Coast’s Division 6 councillor, married and she and husband Desmond moved to the Gold Coast in 1969.

She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2006 for service to the community.

81: MINE CRAFT

March 15, 1966

IT’s not every day you see a World War II-era German mine on the Glitter Strip. That was the sight which greeted the stunned Gold Coast on March 15, 1966 when the rusted relic of Nazi Germany’s war machine appeared on Surfers Paradise beach, washing in the breakers. The mine carried 299.4kg of explosives and was first spotted off Staghorn Ave at 1.40pm, sparking a massive response from emergency services and eventually, the Royal Australian Navy.

A five-man naval demolition squad was called in to deal with the 1.2m mine and they moved to put the mine into a steel-bottomed toboggan in front of an audience of more than 2000 people, including future mayor Lex Bell.

Progressive evacuations occurred along a 2.4km stretch of beach. It eventually travelled 7km and by the early hours of March 16, the mine was at the end of The Spit where Lt Parker used plastic explosives to blow off part of the mine’s shell, allowing for the hexonite explosives inside to be removed.

News_Image_File: Clive Palmer.80: WHOLE LOT OF CLIVE

He’s the former rugby league winger who is a businessman, politician and owner of a mining company. BRW estimated his wealth to be $1.22 billion.

Just for kicks he owned the Coast’s A-League soccer franchise from 2008-12 and also owns two courses on the Coast — Palmer Colonial and Palmer Gold Coast, both at Robina.

In 2013, Palmer established the Palmer United Party and won the Queensland seat of Fairfax in the House of Representatives.

Regular diner at Paradise Point, Palmer calls the Gold Coast home.

79: PLANE LUCKY

September 27, 1992

A PLANE out of fuel and a trajectory taking them directly into Currumbin’s Elephant Rock made Pete Charleson think he was about to die.

A Sunday whale watching joy flight was seconds away from ending in disaster for Mr Charleson and his friends until a last-minute piece of ingenuity from pilot Keith Bryant allowed the Cessna 177RG to make one final manure which cleared the rock and allowed its safe landing on Tugun beach.

The crash was front page news for the Gold Coast Bulletin alongside the Brisbane Broncos booking their first grand final appearance after thrashing St George.

Mr Charleson, from Palm Beach, said: “We started looking for a place to land on the beach and but it just happened to be badge day for the surf lifesaving clubs, so the sand was packed with kids and their mums who I think would have been pretty upset if we had come down on top of them.”

The crash occurred just 2km short of Gold Coast Airport where the small plane was due to land.

Decades later, the plane’s three passengers all remain in contact with each other and still live on the Gold Coast.

78: CYCLONE DINAH

1967

On Australia Day weekend, 1967, Category 4 cyclone Dinah narrowly missed the Gold Coast, but gigantic seas flooded the Broadwater and waves punished the beaches.

Six cyclones followed that year and the beaches were hammered by the worst erosion in history.

A series of cyclones also battered the coast in the early 1970s and cyclones Pam and Wanda destroyed the Kirra Surf Club in 1974.

Cyclone David in 1976 was the last ‘severe’ cyclone to hit the coast.

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77: ‘KILLER HILL’ CLAIMS 11 LIVES

September 24, 1990

Disaster was imminent judging by these words: “Oh my God — we’re not going to make it.’

A Tweed Heads-based KJN Tours and Travel bus driver reportedly said as his bus careered out of control down notorious Henri Robert Drive on Tamborine Mountain.

On board were 53 members of a Newcastle senior citizens’ social club out for a day trip.

It was September 24, 1990, and witnesses reported the bus’s brakes were smoking when it plunged over an embankment and rolled several times before hitting a tree.

Eleven people died in the crash and dozens more were injured.

Dubbed the `Killer Hill’, calls were made for buses to be banned from travelling on the road.

After an investigation a number of Transport Department recommendations were put in place, such as reducing the speed limit to 40km/h on steep sections, and a sign on the descent warning large vehicles to use low gear.

News_Image_File: Kristy Hinze and husband Jim Clark.76: KRISTY REINVENTS HERSELF

It’s easy to forget just how long Kristy Hinze has been modelling. Now 35 and married, the granddaughter of controversial political figure Russ, was just 14 when signed by Viviens Model Management and appeared on the cover of Vogue.

“I was young, too young,” she says. ”I was only 14 on that first shoot and working with a guy looking like he was your boyfriend, when I hadn’t even had a boyfriend at that point. so it was weird.”

Pressure to be thin saw her weight plunge to 48kg during her stint as a catwalk model.

In 2009 she married US billionaire Jim Clark, 65, and they had a daughter together in 2011.

News_Image_File: Cav's Steakhouse.75: STAKE IN STEAK

1984-PRESENT

To survive a year in the Gold Coast restaurant industry is a bit of a milestone — more than 30 years is almost unheard of.

But on Frank Street at Labrador, there’s a Spanish-influenced white house with a few colourful cows grazing out the front, which has shone since 1984.

Cav’s Steakhouse owner is Richard Cavill, part of the Cavills who helped form the Gold Coast.

Expanding the service, Mr Cavill opened the nearby butcher shop in 1996.

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74: COPPING A SPRAY

For more than 30 years Al Baldwin was known as The Suntan Man.

A skinny bloke who sprayed oil on Surfers Paradise beachgoers, Al could cover up to 600 people a day during the coast’s peak tourist season and estimated he had sprayed more than three million people during his famous reign.

Al grew up in a New Zealand orphanage and moved to Sydney in the early 1950s, opening a restaurant in the eastern suburbs which became a magnet for ‘colourful’ racing identities and socialites.

Al is regarded as one of the city’s true characters, taking over the suntan spraying business from John Paterson, known as The Muttonbird Man.

Mr Paterson had gained approval from the council in 1952 to spray people on Surfers beach with his suntan lotion, derived from mutton-birds.

But when Al was aged 74, he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and 11 months later he died at his Surfers Paradise home.News_Image_File: Gabriele Ingrid Jahnke.

73: POLICE HUNT MANIAC

OCTOBER 1973

In October 1973 party girl Gabriele Ingrid Jahnke and her inseparable younger friend and fellow Brisbanite Michelle Anne Riley made the fatal choice to hitchhike to the Gold Coast to save their money for partying.

The pair had only known each other for two months, but decided to have a change of scenery from the Brisbane pub scene with a break on the Gold Coast.

The girls were last seen alive at Michelle’s home in Annerley about 5pm on October 5, 1973.

The decomposed body of 19-year-old Ms Jahnke was found by two traumatised children dumped on the side of the Pacific Highway at Ormeau, on the morning of October 13.

Her body lay at the bottom of an embankment and it appeared to have been thrown from a car.

She had to be identified through dental records because of massive head injuries.

Eleven days later, 16-year-old Ms Riley’s body was found off Camp Cable Road, Loganholme.

Police said one person — ‘a frenzied mania’ — committed both murders.

Within days of finding her body, an 18-year-old Ipswich girl was raped and stabbed and left for dead near Nerang.

Ms Jahnke and Michelle were the third and fourth female hitchhikers to meet violent deaths in the Southeast corner of Queensland in the 1970s.

For decades, police have been coy about suggesting they were the work of a serial killer, but it was never dismissed.

72: OUR LAUREN BEATS JEN

OCTOBER, 2002

With the benefit of hindsight it was one of the greatest boilovers of all time.

But when Lauren Lillie was crowned Miss Indy in October 2002, few had any qualms with the result.

Blonde sportswear model and personal trainer Lauren seemed the perfect choice — she had a healthy, sporty image and vibrant personality, and her boyfriend of the time, rugby league star Justin Hodges, watched on proudly as she was crowned.

But looking on was the second runner-up, Jennifer Hawkins, a future Miss Universe. These days Lauren, 34, is a Byron Bay yogi.

News_Image_File: William Carmichael with daughter AJ, from Upper Coomera on the Hinze Dam wall.71: DAM RIGHT

HINZE Dam was named in honour of the Hinze family who lived in the valley that was flooded by the dam. The main purpose of the dam, located 15 kilometres southwest of Nerang, is to provide water to the Gold Coast. Southport Town Council planned the dam in 1947, it was completed in 1976 and expanded in 1989 and 2011.

70: FAT ALBERT

1974

In 1994 the Local Government Commission proposed amalgamating Gold Coast City and Albert and Beaudesert shires creating a regional government body which would administer a population of almost 400,000.

The following year the plan came to fruition, although without Beaudesert. At the last Albert Shire Council meeting, shire chief executive Terry Moore dubbed the new supercity “Fat Albert”. Ray Stevens, now the State Member for Mermaid Beach, was mayor of the Albert Shire and the first mayor of the merged council.

69: TRAILBLAZER

1914-1998

Ivy May Pearce was one of the first female pilots in the southern hemisphere and pioneer of the Gold Coast. Ivy, born 1914, developed an interest in flying after her father gave her a Tiger Moth plane.

At 18, she was one of Australia’s first aerobatic pilots and in 1936 competed in the Brisbane to Adelaide air race.

She married Ernest Hassard, whom she had three children with, and in 1946 opened the first fashion boutique on the Gold Coast.

News_Image_File: Sophie Monk.68: HELENSVALE HIGH TO HOLLYWOOD

What made Benji Madden fall for Gold Coast star Sophie Monk?

“You know, it’s the reason anyone falls for anyone — you meet someone, they’re nice and you get together,” said the Good Charlotte musician who was once engaged to the Gold Coaster. Once a Marilyn Monroe performer at Movie World, the blonde beauty then made headlines on the entertainment gossip pages both here and in the United States.

The former Helensvale High School scored minor roles in Date Movie and Click, which starred American comedian Adam Sandler, and also appeared in cult television show Entourage. Monk found fame with reality TV show Pop Stars, through which she became a member of pop group Bardot. She went on to launch a solo career and released an album in 2003 called Calendar Girl. Monk, 35, is currently filming scenes for television show Celebrity Apprentice.

67: ROYAL WAVE

MARCH 7, 1963

The Gold Coast got its first visit from a reigning British monarch on March 7, 1963 when Queen Elizabeth arrived at Coolangatta Airport.

It was a wet day when the Queen, who was marking 11 years on the throne, arrived on the Glitter Strip, which had been named the Gold Coast just only five years earlier.

While walking the streets of the new city, the Queen was photographed with the Duke of Edinburgh accompanied by an honour guard of lifesavers.

She attended festivities surrounding the Coolangatta Surf Carnival.

News_Image_File: A Jack Evans Porpoise Pool visitor takes part in a show with Jack.66: MARINE PARK PIONEER

More than 30 years have passed since the late Gold Coast tourism icon Jack Evans retired but his impact continues to be felt.

The internationally renowned larrikin founded the Snapper Rocks Sea Baths in 1955 and soon put the Gold Coast on the tourism map with Australia’s first marine stadium.

Jack Evans came to the Gold Coast in 1946 after retiring from the RAAF at the end of World War II and soon became a volunteer beach inspector.

After creating the sea baths, he quickly built a second pool to house sharks after interest grew following a series of shark attacks in the region.

Dolphins were also a popular addition to the stadium’s entertaining line up. The attraction soon brought in plenty of tourists but it had its difficulties.

Bad weather would often cause waves to wash the sharks into the adjacent swimming pool and the dolphins back into the ocean.

After several years of operation, Mr Evans moved his growing tourist attraction out of Coolangatta and just across the border into Tweed Heads, where he established the Coast’s first theme park, Jack Evans’ Pet Porpoise Pool and Aquarium on the banks of the Tweed River.

Mr Evans retired in 1977 and sold the park to developer Keith Williams. He died in 2002 at the age of 88.

65: 21 DIE IN BILINGA INFERNO

MARCH 10, 1949

“I should have been on it, but I wasn’t meant to die.”

Former Coolangatta drapery store owner Bill Stafford and a mate had been booked to fly on the ill-fated Lockheed Lodestar that flew out of Bilinga airstrip on the morning of March 10, 1949.

At the last minute, both changed their booking to the next day. The decision saved their lives.

Fourteen men, five women and two children were burned to death when the Lockheed crashed seconds after takeoff.

It was Queensland’s worst civil air disaster and one of the deadliest in Australian civil-aviation history.

News_Image_File: On the Buses star Reg Varney.64: BUS STUNT JUST THE TICKET

1983

As the song says, never let a chance go by. In 1983, British television personality Reg Varney hit the Coast.

One of the stars of TV comedy On the Buses, Varney stepped off his plane to find a double-decker bus, meter maids and the media in a stunt orchestrated by the Gold Coast Visitors Bureau.

Bill Rawle, who operated the Gold Coast by Night bus tours, said Varney was unfazed and obligingly got into character as Stan Butler, the happy-go-lucky London bus driver with an eye for the girls.

It had been a well-planned attack that went off perfectly — making the front page of the Gold Coast Bulletin on Thursday, November 17, 1983.

That visit was just one of many made to the Gold Coast by Varney, whose variety show played at Twin Towns Services Club five times between 1979 and 1988.

63: MURDER ON MAIN

FEBRUARY 3, 1999

In Main Beach, one of the Coast’s cafe society hot spots, people like to watch. So when a bloodied man ran down Tedder Avenue with a knife at 10pm on February 3, 1999, people did just that.

SP bookmaker Neil Morrison cut the throats of renowned drug dealer John (Ski) Adadzynski and former Penthouse Pet of the Year tuned prostitute, Jacqueline Leyden, inside a luxury unit close to the trendy Felix Bar.

Morrison also stabbed himself in a failed suicide bid. He pulled the knife from his neck and ran, disorientated, past cafes.

The murders came in a bloody period for the Gold Coast, with seven people killed in a space of 13 days, leading to the Coast being dubbed ‘Murder town’.

62: KING’S PLAYGROUND

January 11, 2011

FOR a few short years in the early 1990s a king reigned on the Gold Coast. Rugby league legend Wally Lewis made his name playing State of Origin and as the founding captain of the Brisbane Broncos.

But in 1991 the Emperor of Lang Park found himself far away from Brisbane’s stadium in the foreign land of Tweed Heads where, just across the NSW border, he led the Gold Coast Seagulls. Just over 24 years after playing his first game for the Seagulls, Lewis said he looked back on his time with the team fondly.

“We were not quite as successful as the Broncos but I loved my time on the Coast and they were good people and great supporters,” Lewis said.

He was captain-coach in 1992 and coached in 1993. The Seagulls folded in 1995.

61: AND RACING ...

NEW YEAR’S DAY, 1879

The Gold Coast has always been a punter’s dream.

The pioneering Veivers family hosted the region’s first race day at Nerang on New Year’s Day 1879.

Race meetings were also held in hinterland communities and on the beach at Coolangatta.

As Australian began to return from World War II, the diggers were keen to re-establish their peacetime pursuits.

On March 17, 1946 the Southport and district Amateur Race Club was formed, and held its first meeting on May 15 at Bundall.

On October 25, 1964, the Oxenford and Southport clubs amalgamated. It later became the Gold Coast Turf Club.

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60: BEARLY HANGING ON

1986

IT took Queensland more than 100 years to fully embrace Australia’s indigenous game, but Sherrin footies have been booted around our back yards for longer than people might think.

The Queensland Football Association was formed in 1879 by Brisbane and Ipswich clubs and was succeeded by the QFL in 1903. The first ever game at the Gabba was played two years later.

But for most Queenslanders and Gold Coasters it all came to a head in 1986, when Carrara hosted the first home game of the Brisbane Bears in the VFL competition.

It was the unlikely outcome of a partnership between Matlock star Paul Cronin and Quintex boss Christopher Skase.

Skase and Cronin’s private consortium joined the VFL on October 6, 1986.

Ironically, the Bears in 1987 lost their first home game to regular strugglers the Fitzroy Lions with whom they would merge more than 10 years later.

The Bears continued to lose games and eventually amalgamated with Fitzroy in 1996 to form the Brisbane Lions based at the Gabba in Brisbane.

59: CRAZY CANDIDATES

The Gold Coast has been blessed with many outrageous and eccentric election candidates — Fifi the French maid, Christian Jocumsen, who ran under a ticket of nude beaches (now they were great press conferences) and Brian Shepherd, the mayor with flare who never got there.

Before any of them emerged on the political scene we were thankful to have Will Steer, a gentle, always smiling man who presumably enjoyed exercising his right to free speech and was always listed on every ballot paper.

He changed his name to A.A Aabraham-Steer when the electoral office decided to list candidates in alphabetical order, reasoning the donkey vote would increase his chances tenfold.

His greatest stunt was at the official opening of the West Chevron Island Bridge, when with dignitaries aplenty he sputtered over the bridge on his trusty scooter and attempted to slash the ribbon a la Captain Francis de Groot and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

In those days an army of bodyguards o r police were not on hand to cart him away for his terrorist activities and, after the ribbon was replaced, the opening resumed without further incident.

Oh, except that one of the dignitaries, Russ Hinze, toppled off the back of the stage.

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