They had lived and met each other in Mount Isa in the 1970s. 

She invited two other couples to join them. Their connection to the city is intertwined and it comes from a time when it had a different social and educational climate. 

Mark and Gail Seay: 

It was September, 1975, when American Mark Seay moved to Australia to begin a teaching career. 

Australia was filling a demand for teachers by hiring them from the United Kingdom, America and Canada. Mr Seay had finished university and traveled to Brisbane for a week’s orientation. 

After the week’s training he learned he would be posted as a music teacher at the former Mount Isa State High School (the other secondary school Kalkadoon High would start in January, 1977. Both would eventually merge to become Spinifex State College in 2003). 

“I knew nothing about what I was in for,” Mr Seay said. “It was an adventure the moment I stepped onto the plane.

“It was very interesting and trying and challenging in the first year’s experience for me, but I quickly got involved in what was known as the Mount Isa Youth Orchestra. I was very much involved in all things of making music in Mount Isa.” 

He would soon meet his wife Gail (nee James), who taught Year 2 at Healy State School, and lived in teacher accommodation in Topaz Street with Leonie (nee Russell) and Beverley (nee Price-Jones). A lifelong connection between them began. 

In late 1976 Mr Seay and Ms James married in Brisbane, where they worked another year. Then they traveled to the US to attend graduate school, had two children, and began teaching across the world.

Their firstborn Rachel, 36, is named after a favourite Healy student of Mrs Seay’s. “I don’t know what ever happened to her, she was an impressive little girl,” she recalled. 

The Seays have taught at the American School of Doha, Qatar, for 17 years, but return to their home in Mooloolaba every year where they maintain their long-term friendships.

John and Leonie Joseph: 

Leonie Joseph(nee Russell) recalls Mount Isa as “party town”. It is where her husband John, from Arizona, learned what a “shout was”. You paid for six, 12 or 18 pots – never one when you are out drinking with your mates. 

Mr Joseph moved to Australia in April, 1975. As mentioned previously, overseas teachers were in much demand. He read on a noticeboard that if he took a job in Queensland he would get a free plane ticket and would not have to pay tax for two years. 

“I spent a week in Brisbane and was given the posting of Mount Isa,” he said. “I grabbed a map and said, ‘where is it?’ 

“I came from the Arizona desert to Mount Isa so it was very similiar, except there was no air-conditioning.” 

Mrs Joseph, a Brisbane girl, had a different reaction to getting the posting at Healy State School. “I remember crying my eyes out because I had to go that far away from home,” she said. 

She made life-long friends from her house mates and met her husband of 40 years while working at the same school. They had met at a teacher’s barbecue at St Kieran’s. 

“After the first week of settling in it was my best year of my life. I had the most fun,” Mrs Joseph said. 

Mr Joseph returned to Arizona while Mrs Joseph moved to England, but they sent letters to each other and soon she joined him. They returned, married, and worked on Mornington Island in 1978-79. 

They now live in the Sunshine Coast but fondly remember the adventures they had. 

“We did a lot of camping, a lot of school trips. The Gregory, the Karumba Prawn Festival, Leichhardt Falls, catching crocodiles with bare hands. All these adventures you normally wouldn’t have,” Mr Joseph recalled. 

Much had changed but the features such as the mine and the dry river bed still dominated. 

“Four pubs on the corners’ all changed,” Mr Joseph said. “The meeting places we had for a Friday night was gone, the tavern we had our favourite meals are gone. The Casbah (bar) was between what was Boydies and the Isa Hotel. 

“The spirit of the place stands out.” 

David and Beverley Stubbs: 

Beverley (nee Price-Jones) had a friend living in Mount Isa who had become engaged to a mine worker. So Beverley, a teacher in Moranbah, visited the north west to offer her congratulations. 

“They kept saying what a good place Mount Isa was for young people, and so I applied for a transfer (to Healy) and came up here, and ended up in the house with Leonie and Gail.” 

She remembers them all becoming involved in the Mount Isa Theatrical Society and performing in a play called Annie Get Your Gun. Mrs Stubbs was delighted to learn MITS still existed. 

“That was one of the wonderful things about Mount Isa was for young single teachers to come up here,” Mrs Stubbs said. 

“Because you would arrive and would immediately meet other people and have a social life.” 

She took leave and traveled in the United Kingdom, and returned a year later to live in Darling Crescent. Now living on the same street was her future husband, David. 

Mr Stubbs was among the first teachers to work at Kalkadoon High School with six other teachers and the principal. 

“It was difficult because it was a brand new school with no culture and a small number of staff,” he said. 

“We got together and worked hard and we did the best for the students. We realised in hindsight that mistakes were made, but we tried hard for the students.” 

The Stubbs married in 1989 and taught internationally three years later; having been posted in Singapore, Kuwait, Dubai and Qatar. Mount Isa set the grounding for these postings. 

“Mount Isa taught me to work hard, it taught me I had to improve my teaching technique,” Mr Stubbs said. 

“You had to make lessons interesting and do the right thing for students and gain their respect, and...when there was a mutual respect, learning would happen. 

“But you had to work hard.”