Photo: courtesy of Bright Stars Modelling.

Well, they’re not the words that 15 year-old Stacey Bentley would use, nevertheless, she is the best young Paint Horse rider in the country, and this striking young woman will soon leave for Fort Worth, Texas to prove her own worth as one of the best riders of the Paint Horse in the world. Stacey spoke to Hinterland Times editor, Michael Berry about this rarely known, but growing sport.

“Competition is like a western type of show with the emphasis on what they call Western Pleasure”, says Stacey. “You wear what the cowboys wear – leather stock curved saddles with shiny silver ornaments. The aim is that the
horse goes around in a relaxed manner with you being as relaxed as you can too, but having full control. The horse goes around on a long rein; they have to look willing. There’s a bit of an art to it.

Photo: courtesy of Agile Photographics.

“You ride around the outside of the arena, the judge will stand in the middle and they will call out to walk or to jog or lope which is a form of cantering but slower. They judge on how well trained the horse is, how well you ride yourself with position and leg aids.”

Paint Horse riding has become the second biggest show horse event in the US. The special quarter horse and thoroughbred  breed has striking white patches ‘painted’ over its body and the genuine  Paint Horse rider looks like a cut-out from Wild Bill Hikock’s Wild West Show.

When you see her all dressed up Stacey Bentley wears her wide cowgirl hat, silver belt buckle, wide chaps with frills down the leg, wrangler jeans, high boots and rhinestone covered shirt. A good paint horse rider must also learn equitation – a form of etiquette in the saddle. You have to look prim and
proper, relaxed but not sloppy.

Stacey is raising money for her airfares and expenses to Fort Worth in June when she will be in a team of four under eighteen year-olds.

Photo: courtesy of Francene Neuendorf.

“When we get there we literally draw a horse out of a hat”, says Stacey. You only have about 40 minutes with the horse before your event. So, you’ve got to be able to ride any horse, adapt and do your best. You might get a horse
that has been trained completely differently to what you’re used to, so there’s a bit of luck and some strategy to it to be the best rider that you can be.

“They also have a team relay on foot where you run from station to station having to piece together a bridle, then to another and say, put together a map of the world. Then there’s knowledge of the horse competition, a teams
parade with a set theme. Then they add up all the results. Last year Australia got fourth.”

Stacey was born into a horse-riding family. Their Kunda horse stud in Peachester has its own ring and stables and Stacey trains and rides her own paint horse called Odette. Stacey’s grandmother and mother have both been
champion riders and their trophies from decades past literally line the entire lounge / dining room of the grandparents’ home.

“My mum rides, trains and breaks paint horses, so I was kind of born into it”, says Stacey matter of factly. I started competing when I was 12. I have been to the state and national championships every year since then. In the last two years I have got high point junior youth (14 and under). At the state show I got high point junior for two years and high point youth overall (18 and under).”

Is there a secret to Stacey’s winning form? “Well, you see some people riding around who have such plain, scrunched up expressions. I enjoy myself and the bond that I have between me and my horse, Odette.”

“Presentation is the key”, adds Stacey. “I make sure all my tack and clothes are clean and I am fit well. And I pay attention to things like hair, make-up, clothes, etc. If you come into the arena on a dirty horse, with a bad outfit you will not place; the judge won’t even give you a second look.”

Stacey, who is a Year 11 student at Beerwah State High, is also doing a retail traineeship. She rides 4-5 days a week and when she leaves school she has ambitions of going back to America to work as a ranch farmhand.

Win or lose in Fort Worth Texas, one thing is sure. Stacey has her hands firmly on the reins of her future.

The Pattemore homestead, first known as ‘Fairview’ has now been re-named ‘Pattemore House’

ROB PATTEMORE has fond memories of his first five years in Maleny around the house built for his great grand-father, John Robert in 1908. Pattemore House is now owned by the Sunshine Coast Regional Council and forms part of the 126 hectare Maleny Precinct.

John Robert Pattemore was a butcher by trade and arrived in Australia from Somerset when he was five. He came to live in Maleny in 1907. His four sons had come on ahead to built the home that John Robert lived in until he died in 1947 aged 97.

In the early 1940s Rob Pattemore remembers his elderly grandfather’s home because he remembers picking persimmons from his tree and receiving a very sore tongue.

John Robert’s son Bill and Stan had bought the land in 1906, known these days as Armstrong’s Farm. This large and close family had been farmers and butchers in Central Tilba, but too many dry seasons persuaded the Pattemores to move north to the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

The Pattemore family gather on their verandah during the early part of the 20th century.

John Robert also bought adjoining land parcels and the heavily timbered land provided the materials to build the elegant Pattemore House. It was typical of the times that the Pattemore brothers were not only farmers, but good builders and carpenters. They cut the timbers in a saw pit, then planed, tongue and grooved the cedar and white beech by hand for this spacious house with its deep verandahs and tall windows.

The only other surviving building in Maleny constructed with local pit-sawn timber is the first stage of the Maleny Hotel.

Keep in mind that there was no shire council until 1912, so there were no annoying building regulations to worry about. During this first decade of the 20th century Maleny grew with the dairy boom. An ES&A Bank came in 1906, a hotel was built the following year and there was a butcher and general store. Maleny was officially listed as a township in 1912 and it had a population of about 510.

When John Robert came to live in his new home in 1908 he set to planting a vegetable garden and fruit orchard around the house. At the turn of the century, if you didn’t grow or raise your own food, then life could be very tough. Ernest lived in the house with his father and mother Emily, and he became the share farmer taking a lease on the Pattemore land until 1923.

Robert and Shirley Pattemore. Robert is the great grandson of John Robert Pattemore who first settled in Maleny in 1908.

The Pattemore brothers – Bill, Stan, Albert and Ernest were industrious builders. For example, after Pattemore House, they built Forest Lodge, the house that stands at the crossroads in north Maleny. It’s believed they also built Lawley House and Priscilla Cottage now combined into an historical village in Bryce Lane.

In John Robert’s latter years his son Stan helped him grow corn around the home and he took on local farm work. His sisters continued to look after the house and their parents.
Councillor Jenny McKay says Pattemore House is fully protected by the Sunshine Coast Regional Council. “It is the first piece of the Precinct jigsaw in place and the first step has been to secure it for its historical value”, she said.

Rob Pattemore is president of the Friends of Pattemore House and hopes this rare Maleny homestead, which is on the state heritage register, will be maintained in perpetuity.
“Personally, I think it should be put together as an educational centre so people, particularly children, can see what life was like in the early 1900s. The old cow bails should be moved up there too, perhaps with a typical cream shed. We need to be reminded of how hard life was in those early days”.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF ROBERT PATTEMORE

Jill Shelton the Festival Director says, “Our aim was to create a festival where people could come along and participate in a wide range of passion tasting workshops, talks, presentations etc for the equivalent value of twenty dollars a session, while experiencing quality entertainment for even less.”

The Passion Tasting Festival has over 30 interactive and content-rich workshops, all carefully selected to give people the opportunity to discover, share and experience a wide variety of passions. Workshops range from living your passion and creative structure, to dynamic storytelling, public speaking, primal dance, singing and much more.

Local and internationally-recognised speakers will reveal how their life experiences have led to the development and pursuit of their particular passions. You will be inspired by speakers such as Dominique Finney, Falu Eyre, Vanessa Hall, Barbara Brewster, Sarah and Chris Pye.

For those who are passionate about the arts, or would love to experience art for the first time, there is a variety of hands-on workshops, an interactive Art Central area and Art Gallery.

A platform is being provided for emerging bands, musicians and entertainers during the day, with soul-stirring professional concerts at night. Friday night is a charity concert with Sulco, Hayden Hack Infusion and French Butler called Smith, and Saturday night De Greer Yindimincarlie, The Twine and OKA.

The Craft market stallholders provide a passionate display of their creative talents to peruse, and for the health conscious there will be a broad mix of gifted energy workers and healers on hand to demonstrate their skills.

Food is one of our greatest passions and festival caterers will fill your stomachs with gourmet tastes and liquid delights.

The 3 day Passion tasting festival is at the Maleny Show grounds on the beautiful Sunshine Coast Hinterland from 26-28 March.

For full program information and ticket sales visit the website at www.passiontastingfestival.com.au or phone:  07 5473 9498.

Left: Tim Donovan with wine glass.

THE BUTCHER, the baker, the cheese, chef and wine maker will all present their creative skills at The Kenilworth Cheese Wine and Food Fest on Easter Saturday, in Kenilworth Town Park.

Curious to know where that glazed ham comes from? Or what to do with the leftover pork hock? Introduce your self to local butchers Bruce and Jimmy and watch them go the whole hog. And a special treat –they will be selling bison beef on the day!

The day-long festival will present award-winning local produce including sumptuous sauces, organic olives, mushrooms, pies, and the famous preservative-free bread from the Kenilworth Bakery.

There will be cooking demonstrations throughout the day including unique tastes from local bush foods. Visitors can sample everything from cream scones to Thai country cooking, all produced with a local spin. The Farm-to-Fork Feast will be offering smoked semi dried tomatoes, beef jerky, tasty wood fired pizzas and Gitsham’s award winning sausages.

Obi Kobi Wagyu will be selling their gold medal-winning Wagyu beef steaks at the Festival.  In addition they will also offer Wagyu beef patties, hand-made Wagyu sausages and Wagyu kebabs for sale.

Other entertainment includes a Great Cheester Egg Hunt at 9.30am (registration at 9am). There’s a cheese rolling contest that kicks off at 9am and a line dancing display. More details: phone Di: 07 5446 0003.

Our other young achiever is 15 year-old Stacey Bentley, a striking young woman, just starting Year 12 at Beerwah State High and a national paint horse champion in her spare time. Stacey is off to Fort Worth Texas soon to compete in the international paint horse championships as part of an Australian team. What’s also impressive is that Stacey is fundraising for the many thousands of dollars she needs to make the trip.

Following some suggestions from readers we have a couple of new columns in this edition -Mind Your Business offers advice for small business owners and it’s written by a very experienced marketing and ad man - Eddy Oddy. We also have an Auto Guide column which is prepared for us by a couple of professional motoring journalists Yvonne and David Williams.

Two outspoken Christian priests, are launching separate books this month. Catholic rebel Father Peter Kennedy and Anglican cleric and academic, Ray Baraclough each challenge religious orthodoxy. Peter was sacked from St Mary’s in South Brisbane in 2009 for supposedly breaking with Catholic liturgy. In Peter’s book supporters have written about the man, Catholic doctrine and the dire future of the Church.

Ray Baraclough faces the difficult question of why so many believe God is responsible for earthquakes, epilepsy and global warming. Why is a loving God so cruel?
We have reviewed both books in this edition, and I will chair a community conversation with both authors in Maleny on March 17 (see p.32-33).

My email inbox gets busier each month and I am sorry if an item you expected to see didn’t make it this time. Let me urge anyone with a personal, business or community story to let us know as early as possible in the month. Our deadline is always the 25th of the month for stories, and we’ll always do our best to fit you in. After that date is usually impossible.

Enjoy the March edition and if you feel like commenting on a story, please go to our website which, I am delighted to say, is now attracting more and more attention from readers around the world.
( www.hinterlandtimes.com.au ).

Michael Berry

“To be recognised by the Sunshine Coast Regional Council, and to be named as young citizen of the year is an honour.

“I suppose that for the next year I can set an example for other young people to start standing up and taking roles in our community. My role will be continuing to be a voice for young people and the Indigenous community of the traditional Gubbi Gubbi people. I will be involved in cultural discussion papers, sitting on the cultural board of the Noosa Biosphere, and be a voice there for the things I hear from other young people, for what needs to be happening here on the Sunshine Coast.

“I’m employed by an organisation called Interactive Community Planning where I develop programs, projects, events around employment and training, self determination and identity. I coordinate a young women’s business program at Nambour High School. I just connect with the young girls there and build a relationship with them and create a space and find comfort with that.
“As a young person I have faced a lot of hardships and obstacles and have been in some very dark places. I was in a head-on car collision in 2007 and doctors thought I would die, and certainly never walk again. That period of my life revealed what is important; that we have only one life and one time, and the time is now to start trying to create a future for my children and build a better community.

“I was brought up in contemporary times in a modern day Australia. So, I am walking in two worlds, having to have respect and stay connected to my traditional aboriginal heritage, but knowing that I live in modern times where things are very different.”

Ukraine-born pianist, Yvgeny Ukhanov takes a bow at the opening of the Lucas Parklands new entertainment space on February 27.

THE THUNDERING rain stopped one evening at the end of February to allow a grand opening of the wonderful new music centre at Lucas Parklands in Montville.

Ian and Lee Lucas have made their music venue a dream come true and the opening concert was a stunning sign, if one were needed, that high musical culture on the Hinterland is here to stay.

To celebrate the 200th birthday of Frederick Chopin, Ukraine-born Maestro, Yvgeny Ukhanov played choice Chopin sonatas, at times pairing with cellist, and head of strings at the University of Queensland Gwyn Roberts.

Oliver She, a young Chinese third year music student at UQ astonished the audience of more than 200 keen concert goers with his own mastery of Chopin.

One of the highlights of this stimulating evening’s entertainment was when Gwyn Roberts persuaded Ian Lucas to sit at his beautiful flame mahogany Steinway grand. With Gwyn on cello they improvised around the film theme, The Deerhunter, the haunting piece by Stanley Myers.

Unwilling to let these talented musicians go home, encores were insisted from both Ukhanov and She who delivered blistering performances of Rakmaninov and Lizst.
Looking at his music space filled to capacity simply by word of mouth, Ian Lucas told his audience he now wanted a bigger room. For details of future concerts email: lucasparklands@bigpond.com

M

“From the time I bought the business I wanted to go green”, says Brenda. “I changed the name to Maleny Green Printery because I started using recycled paper and 100% vegetable oil inks for my offset work. I use environmentally- friendly chemicals as much as I can, because it’s a really dirty business and the chemicals are quite harsh. So we try and limit that impact.

“The digital press is totally environmental”, Brenda adds. “There’s no ozone, there’s no volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and there’s no chemicals.”

But does being green mean the customers pays more for their printing.

“No. I try to keep the costs down”, says Brenda. “I eat some of the margin to use the greener paper. “

Since taking over the business located in Coral Street, Brenda has updated most of the finishing equipment as well as buying the digital press. She has a new collator, stapler, and trimmer for booklets, and a perfect binder which makes paperback books. The floor-to-ceiling wall racks display the very wide range of publications, 90 per cent of them produced on the premises – business cards to brochures, stationery to books. Some jobs Brenda will outsource and not do on the premises.

“Large posters for example, and refrigerator magnets can be done better elsewhere. You literally have to cut them one at a time because quite naturally they stick together (she laughs).”

Before turning to printing Brenda had an executive position in sales and marketing with Hewlett Packard.

“Marketing just fascinates me”, she says. “What hooks the customer and what doesn’t.”

And, given her previous business life Brenda is comfortable with technology. Aware that it changes every five years, Brenda calls herself an “early adopter” – a quick customer for new technology and products. She is applying for a national certification as a green printer for ethical reasons through the Printing Industries Association of Australia. It’s also because within a couple of years all government printing contracts will require it.

“I have to make a couple of physical changes to the place. I had to buy a spill kit for example. But I am well within the range for most of the requirements.

“Certification does bring out particular graphic designers who are looking for green printers, so I am looking forward to that.”

Clients are approaching Brenda from interstate because they are looking to use recycled paper, and she has printed jobs for clients down south cheaper than printers they’ve known around the corner.

“One of the things I like about this business is that you create what you want and I like printing a variety of things. I will print 100 books and then we’ll do some business cards and brochures. I have spoilt the community though”, says Brenda with bright laughter. “ They ring and say, ‘Oh there’s no hurry. This afternoon will be OK”. www.malenyprint.com

Her strong works involve a labor intensive process -a step by step procedure including the manipulation and outlay of elements such as textiles, plants and the creation of their imprints and traces. She uses colour to bring out their texture, their richness and hidden beauty.

“I see a connection with the way we, as human beings, retain traces of events, experiences and significant objects that hold quiet meanings” says Nathalie. “The traces left are printed into our inner imagery and memory, forever altering the colors and textures of our lives”.

Nathalie has a strong artistic background with her grandfather and father both painters and sign writers. It was her father who passed on so many of the skills and techniques she uses in her art.

Nathalie is a senior support worker for Sunshine Coast Independent living Services in Nambour. She works in her private studio whenever she has the time.

“Masala” is a blend of ‘mixed spices’ representing the mixture of Indian influences.
Marianne says she feels a degree of trepidation when dipping her paintbrush into other people’s culture. “Observations by an outsider can be both trite and presumptuous and I would hate to offend”, she says.

“These paintings have been inspired by my visits to India and the deepest impression left by that country is always the huge and extreme contrasts of rich and poor.

The riches of the Raj may now be replaced by the moguls of industry and business enterprise, but the contrasting poverty becomes greater by comparison.”

Some of Marianne’s paintings explore the idealised visions of the Mogul emperors set against the harsh poverty and hunger that remains ever present in this remarkable country of social contrast.

Other influences are the richly ornate temples and artifacts, the embroideries and miniatures, the vivid colourings and the evocative shapes of traditional Indian architecture.

“Imagination, fantasy and a touch of socio-political comment are what I aim for”, adds this thoughtful painter.