Community & Business
23 July, 2025
Former groundskeeper celebrates 90th birthday
Former Oakey State High School groundskeeper Kevin Frank celebrated his 90th birthday this week, with his wife of 67 years, Edna.
Kevin and Edna met at local Social Club events when they were teenagers.
Love blossomed between the strapping young farm lad and belle-of-the-ball and they announced their engagement four years after they first met and were married in 1957.
During their few years of married life in Oakey, Kevin was employed at the local abattoir and Edna at the Co-Operative Store.
After several years they moved to Biddeston to work on a dairy farm.
Son Gregery was born in 1962 and four years later, daughter Sharyn followed.
Kevin and Edna moved back to Oakey in 1967 and found work in various occupations which included Kevin working in the railway “flying gang’, and Edna returning to the Co-Op Store, as purchasing officer for the Drapery Department.
After both drove the local school buses for a time, Kevin was employed as a ground maintenance officer at the Oakey State High School for the next 26 years until retirement and Edna worked at the local hardware store for 20 years.
Both are extremely resourceful and creative - Edna has received many awards for her quilting and folk artwork at local and regional shows and Kevin became a skilled wood turner, producing many items for Edna to paint.
Kevin is also an avid collector and restorer of old sewing machines, at one point having over 200 in his collection, some pieces also displaying Edna’s expert brushwork.
Edna has also been renowned for penning a poem or two and has been published in an international volume.
The pair are also musically minded - Kevin with the harmonica, and Edna on the button accordion and lagerphone.
Both played in a country band for some time with other like-minded musicians, volunteering to entertain at local nursing homes, fundraising events for local community groups, their own group social events and the odd guest performance at festivals like the Maclagan Squeeze Box Festival.
Kevin still plays at the odd country music event.
He says a long marriage is built on “love, respect, teamwork and commitment” while Edna puts it down to “trust, laughter… and selective hearing!”
The Oakey Champion thanks Sharyn Frank, who interviewed her parents for this story.
