Tumby Bay Lions have a new member.
Ups and Downs for Terry Wilson
Tumby Bay Lions has a new active member, Terry Wilson.
Terry and his wife have a close connection with Tumby and country South Australia,
just another the ups in his exciting life.
As Terry says…”I have been around country South Australia most of my life, being brought up
in Pinnaroo and finishing the last two years of schooling at Norwood High”.
“In 1980 I spent a year on Rotary Exchange with District 952 to Enumclaw, Washington State,
when I was lucky to witness Mt St Helens blow up”.
“Upon return I worked at the family's newspaper, Pinnaroo Border Times, marrying Jill in 1985,
and moving to remote Groote Eylandt, Arnhem Land for two years (1986-1988) as a printer”.
“We returned to South Australia, and I worked for various commercial printers in Adelaide.
In 1993, we moved to Burra and built up a little run-down business, resurrecting a newspaper
in the town that had been missing for 20 years”.
“As a small business, we multitasked—taking pictures at the footy, developing Monday nights, writing stories, laying out pages, and printing the paper. We also printed four-color work, books,
etc. Our three children, Amy, Doug, and Harley, were raised in Burra. By the time we sold in 2006, we were producing a regular 24-page tabloid with a colour cover”.
“But the writing was on the wall for the printing industry with Gumtree and Domain websites on the rise, cutting into advertising revenue, and we got out at just the right time”
As a mature age student, Terry at 43 years of age went to university, studying to be a teacher while Jill kept working full-time doing finance at the Health Department in Clare.
After graduating, he worked at the most distant school in the state with all Aboriginal students.
the Color Tumby weekend.
Departure Tumby hanger with guest passenger Val Dunstan. Terry Wilson in the left hand seat.
Jill and Terry Wilson in front of the Vans RV-7A, VH - TJW
To avoid the dirt and corrugated road, long and tiring travel and making travel quicker and easier between home and remote schools Terry took to the skies.
Firstly, building his own light aircraft – setting over 10,000 hand riveted fixings and then mastering flying in the outback of Australia navigating to outlying distant education facilities.
From a set of plans he build a new Vans RV-7A aircraft that he now flies in and out of Tumby.
A Vans RV-7A is a two seat, single engine, low wing aircraft powered by a 16+0 hp Lycoming engine. It can fly up to around 15 thousand feet with a range of around 700 miles.
His love for flying has not diminished since locating to Tumby and VH- TJW, in a smart green and white livery, can be seen zipping in and out of Tumby. Terry now has his cherished private aircraft parked in its own hanger at the Tumby airport.
Terry and Jill are fulltime residents of Tumby putting, five schools and 15 years down the track, as ‘work experience’, he is working four days a week at Tumby as a Tech Studies teacher.
Both Terry and Jill have been actively engaged in community activities wherever they have been and are proud to see their children enjoying their lives, happy with life in Tumby and looking forward to rolling up the sleeves assisting Lions in the many community activities.
They have both spent most of their lives heavily involved with their local church, community organisations and consider it an honour to be able to help others.
Terry was inducted to the Lions Club of Tumby Bay & District in March and has since been active with a number of Lions activities including the Lions catering for