In late November I got a call from an old friend who used to be my sales manager when I was the editor at Roma. “What are you up to?” she said, meaningfully. “Oh you know, still the editor at Mount Isa.” Well, she said, “I’ve just been promoted to the sales manager at Mackay – the editor’s job is vacant, you should apply.”
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For a couple of days I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. Working with an old friend on a bigger paper on the coast, likely more money, more staff and closer to Brisbane, all sounded attractive propositions. I read the job ad “A safe pair of hands is not wanted,” it read (though I really think it should have read “we don’t JUST want a safe pair of hands”). But regardless of the safety of my hands, in the end I did not apply. I just felt my time in Mount Isa is not yet up.
I’m here three years as of January 5. In the first week I arrived I used this column to announce I was your editor and I simply “wanted to help”. A year later in January 2017 I said I wanted to keep the North West Star always as “a forthright and honest voice of the North West of our great state.” Fast forward to January 2018 I noted there were times I wondered what I was doing here. “But”, I quickly added, “All it takes me is a Monday evening run up Telstra Hill and when I get to the top and look over over the rugged vastness below I think there is nowhere in the world I’d rather be at that moment.”
That remains true. Running in our glorious region is the closest I get to zen. I was pleased to chalk up my first Outback to the Stack half marathon in July 2018.
There was another big moment of personal satisfaction in October when my series of articles on the high cost of airfares for regional Queenslanders,won me the $15,000 Bean Lockyer Ticehurst Award for Excellence in Regional Journalism award. In my acceptance speech I told the audience my early concern was maybe this was just a tax on living remotely and perhaps something we just needed to put up with.
"But as we looked into this further it became clear this was not about people like me who travel because they want to, but about the many in our region who travel because they have to,” I said. It is an issue we will continue to monitor closely in what will be a federal election year.
There are other issues we need to be on top of too. Soaring electricity prices, local crime, property prices, and the long term prosperity of Mount Isa and the North West (which encapsulates all the individual issues under one heading). These are tough but exciting times and the North West Star will need to ride the waves along with the region.
I may need to learn to surf those waves but one thing has not changed in three years. Bugger Mackay, I’m still here in the North West and I’m still here to help.
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
