By JESSE GRAHAM
A BELOVED Healesville Primary School member has bid her colleagues farewell, ending a 30-year career behind the counter at the school.
Sandra Rowe was farewelled by colleagues past and present in a morning tea on Thursday, 17 September, after announcing she would retire as of the beginning of the next school term.
Ms Rowe sat down with the Mail on her last day at the school to discuss her time there, and she said she had “shed a few tears” reading all of the cards she had received.
“It’s a wonderful community,” she said.
“Not just for the school staff – the local community is just fantastic.”
Starting at the school in the 1980s, Ms Rowe said it was a very different experience to her previous job, working as a secretary at a coal mine.
She began covering people who were on long service leave or away sick, eventually coming on board full-time in the office.
Since then, Ms Rowe said she had seen students at the school grow up, head off to high school, then eventually return with children of their own.
As well as the faces changing, the school itself had changed greatly over the years, from the historic buildings burning to the ground in the early 2000s to the redevelopment of the school in the following years.
“It was very upsetting, because that was the best part of the school – it was our heritage,” she said.
Along with this, the technology has been rapidly updated at the school – Ms Rowe recalled starting with typewriters, before computers were introduced.
“When computers came in, I was put in an office by myself with a new computer, and they said ‘learn’,” Ms Rowe said.
“I learnt and I went to the Living and Learning Centre to do the basics.
“Over the years, I’ve kept up to date … I’ve managed to keep abreast with all of that and I still do.”
Ms Rowe said the workplace was “never boring”, and said the camaraderie between the employees was one of her favourite parts of the job – as well as working with children.
“You get some children coming up saying ‘I want a hug’ – I’m quite happy to do that,” she said, laughing.
Her farewell morning tea was to be a small event – Ms Rowe had asked her colleagues to “keep it low-key” – but more than 30 familiar faces turned up to celebrate Ms Rowe’s departure.
Ms Rowe said she would finish her work over the school holidays, but would not disappear completely – she’ll be returning in 2016 to help with the school’s 150th birthday celebrations.
