Community & Business
4 July, 2025
Birth of the Champion - 40 years on
Oakey’s newspaper, The Oakey Champion, was founded in 1985 thanks to the vision of two men - Alan Wilson and trusty sidekick Ian Leahy.
ALAN WILSON: In the early 80s I had my eye on buying a small country newspaper that had come up for sale, a long established one, integral to its community, but which carried no actual editorial columns. The social classified ads (births, deaths, marriages) were essentially the only source of local news it published.
I was thinking to introduce news content to grow the paper, but during what you might call pre-purchase due diligence enquiries I had been conferring with a work colleague and close friend Ian Leahy, who had grown up in Oakey.
And so Oakey, which hadn’t really had a local newspaper since the days of the Aubigny Argus back the 1930s, started to look like a much better proposition in terms of its bigger size, activity and commercial scope. So my colleague and friend, Ian Leahy and
I decided to give it a go.
IAN LEAHY: Alan Wilson was the driving force behind the newspaper.
We’d both worked at the Dalby Herald and I had grown up in Oakey since the age of 9.
We just did a trial run at Christmas 1984 as a one-off freebie.
I was still working in Dalby at this stage and Alan was in Pittsworth, working at the Sentinel.
In 1985... off we went. It was hard work!
ALAN: Initially I prepared a business plan and took it to a development bank, who sent a fairly high-ranking fellow out from Brisbane to discuss the proposition.
I remember he was uncommonly good with figures; he didn’t use a calculator at all but could rattle off the most difficult and elaborate computations straight from his head so accurately and rapidly as to send you into a dizzy spin.
The problem was, like all successful money men, he was seriously conservative, and unfortunately he then went and conducted his own analysis by surveying the business owners in Oakey.
He came back with the sobering verdict that the town had no appetite or desire for a local newspaper, and therefore the answer was ‘no’.
However, our spirits weren’t extinguished and so we took the case to the local Commonwealth Bank manager at the time, Rod Watson, who bravely shared our optimism and we were able to launch the masthead.
IAN: The paper was well received.
People like the Muirheads were very supportive.
George Florentzos, Darryl Temple and Rod Watson, too.
We had a hard time getting advertisements out of some of the more established businesses.
ALAN: We were always chasing impossible deadlines.
Working mad hours became the standard on publication days and the frequency of lost and aimless drunks and other stragglers who wandered in off the street at all hours, like moths drawn to our brightly lit shop in the ungodly hours demanding to know what the hell we were doing was a constant source of entertainment.
IAN: Mondays and Tuesdays were spent getting the paper done. Tuesday night was deadline night and we’d quite often be in there until 4am-5am.
On Wednesday, we’d drive to Dalby at 8am to get it printed (at the Dalby Herald), and would drive around town doing the deliveries.
ALAN: A month after we launched we convinced the local shops to join in a heritage themed week to coincide with the Jondaryan Woolshed Festival in August.
I remember every business participated and it was a fantastic success for both the town and the Woolshed.
There was a lot of energy in the town; Jaycees gave a lot of enthusiastic support and we also enlisted radio station 4GR who had a huge profile in the area. There was a street party compered by 4GR’s Graham Healy and his team, and everyone dressed up in heritage kit throughout the week.
IAN: I used to do the footy, but Alan did most of the editorial stuff.
An early cadet was Cindy Wockner. Cindy was a clever girl, whatever task Alan set her she would do.
She’s gone on to bigger and better things (originally from Byrmaroo, Wockner worked as a national reporter with multiple News Corporation. She co-authored a book on the Bali 9 with Madonna King and currently works as a reporter with ABC Southern Queensland)
ALAN: A few months later, at the annual Chamber of Commerce annual dinner we were honoured to be named 1985 business of the year, which was a tremendous boost to our spirits and demonstrated the town’s clear endorsement of a local newspaper providing the town a voice and a forum for community dialogue.
We tried to be informative and, true to our masthead, a champion of the town’s progress and its place in sporting arenas.
We also had a bit of fun through an especially popular column called ‘From The Horse’s Mouth’ which regrettably at times went a little too far but generally provided a lot of harmless amusement.
Eventually I sold the masthead, then took it back a few years later, but in the final wash-up, the hours, the deadlines and the financial rewards were not making sense so I walked away from it to pursue other projects.
We were in Oakey for 30 years, - for all its ups and downs it was an interesting time fondly remembered.
Today I am involved in the BnB industry, and whenever there are back-to-back bookings of large guest groups with a tiny window of time to manage all the changeover tasks I’m reminded of a long working life dogged by deadlines, and I question if I’m cursed or stupid.
Ian Leahy long ago took up a senior position as an estimator with one of Queensland’s biggest printing firms where he enjoyed tremendous success.
40 YEARS ON - WITH ONE FAMILIAR NAME
Content Warning: this section references suicide.
A continuing correspondent through the Champion’s 40 years of existence has been Joanne Evans from Jondaryan.
Joanne began writing stories for newspapers in the mid 1970s as Public Relations Officer for Toowoomba Rural Youth Club. In 1982 she married, and moved to Jondaryan and continued to write stories for several small newspapers, some of which became very useful in latter years in the compilation of local histories, grant applications, and other documents.
The Champion was one such paper, and her contribution of stories led to Joanne’s engagement as Country Reporter for the Oakey-based newspaper from 1991 to 1993, long before she had access to email and digital photography.
She started with Alan Wilson (of whom she says, “Alan was a quick wit, and often wrote quirky stories. He liked to breathe life into his writing.”) and then Wayne and Diane McIntosh, when they took over the paper in 1994.
The Champion contacted Wayne McIntosh, but did not receive a response, so we asked Joanne for her impression of the former owner of the paper.
“Wayne was somewhat full of his own importance,” she said.
“His forté seemed to be advertising largely. He had organised and recorded advertising campaigns for various businesses around Toowoomba and the Downs. He also had a television background.”
Rural correspondents during McIntosh’s time in charge included Kath Greenhalgh at Acland, Brian Weise at Quinalow, Denise Volz at Kulpi and Val Hardy at Kingsthorpe.
After a good run with the paper, financial constraints began to bite at McIntosh.
Unable to pay his bills, he forfeited the paper to printer John Schmidt, owner of the Pittsworth Sentinel, who assumed ownership in 2002.
Schmidt’s first task was to find someone to run the paper, and the job was filled by the American-born Bob Sheinberg, and advertising rep Biddeston’s Zoe Hampson (later Elkington).
“Bob was relatively quiet, but was active in the Oakey Lions Club for a time,” said Joanne Evans, who worked with Sheinberg in 2005/06 when the reporter was away.
“Zoe was vivacious and quite involved in the Chamber of Commerce.”
Champion owner Schmidt remembers Bob as a dedicated employee and one who had ambitions of taking over the newspaper.
“Bob was a good man,” he said.
“He was doing a good job with the paper.”
Things changed, when, without warning, Sheinberg tragically died by suicide over the paper’s summer break in 2007/08.
“The town was saddened at his passing.
“I’m not sure who knew, if anyone what he was struggling with,” Joanne Evans said.
Sheinberg’s boss John Schmidt said there was a large turnout at the funeral, which was attended by Sentinel and Champion staff.
“There was quite a roll up - a testament to his contacts in the town,” he said.
