The city of Wagga and the towns in the Riverina would be nothing without the residents that have lived in them.
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They are responsible for the region’s history, its landscape, its buildings and its culture.
A look back at 150 years of the region’s most notable residents has revealed a plethora of people who would fill far more than this space.
Many of them have been mentioned in previous The Daily Advertiser 150th coverage and in the weeks to come, we will look at those who have shaped the city through design, infrastructure, diversity and the military.
As we trawl the 150-year history of this publication, we have discovered a few notable residents who have emerged from the walls of The Daily Advertiser and its other mastheads.
Every journalist, photographer, sales staff member, editor, deputy, administration or editorial assistant or advertising representative has made The Daily Advertiser what it is today.
But there are journalists, cadets, sports reporters and former editors who have forged impressive careers long after they have put down their pens.
Many have gone on to work for respected media outlets and publications in Australia and overseas and others have changed careers entirely.
Author Frank Moorhouse started his literary career as a journalist, despite a lack of degree.
From 1958 to 1962, Mr Moorhouse worked as a reported for the Wagga Advertiser and the Riverina Express and as the editor of the Lockhart Review.
He published his first short story, The Young Girl and the American Sailor, at age 18 and went on to write renowned short stories, novels, film scripts and anthologies.
Walkley Award-winning journalist Adam Walters started his career as a cadet at the Advertiser. His coverage of the 2002 Bali bombings for Nine News garnered him a shared Walkley Award and Logie nomination in 2003.
More recently, Mr Walters developed an Uber-style app called NewsCar, which allows television stations to contact users near news events as they cover them in real time.
Former Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon was born in Wagga and started his career as a cadet journalist with The Daily Advertiser.
Before he went on to become CEO and managing director of Qantas in 2001, he assisted another notable resident and former employee, Ted Ryder, to establish the sports section of the newspaper.
Ted Ryder wrote general news from the mid-1950s before he became the first full time sports and racing writer.
He was the Advertiser’s first sports editor and was assisted by Mr Dixon, who was the assistant chief of staff at the time, to bolster the pool of sports reporters.
Mr Ryder’s legacy still lives on in the city with the Ted Ryder Memorial Sports Award, which is awarded as part of the Australia Day awards to those who show significant contribution to sport through administration or general service fields.
An annual horse racing day, Ted Ryder Cup Day, boasts the profitable Ted Ryder Cup race in December at the Murrumbidgee Turf Club, which is currently spearheaded by another former sports reporter and news journalist, Scott Sanbrook, as chief executive officer.
Quentin Hull started his media career in his hometown of Wagga as a print journalist in 1995. He started his career writing articles about Group Nine and Group 20.
For his audition tape in 1998 for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), he sought permission from The Rock-Yerong Creek to call their game during the Farrer League grand final. He joined ABC’s Grandstand in 1999 and has garnered a reputation as an informed and witty commentator.
Former editors, including Wayne Geale and Greg Conkey, went on to become mayors of the city of Wagga, from 2010 to 2011 and 2016 to the present, respectively. Mr Geale was an editor of The Daily Advertiser and Cr Conkey was an editor of the Riverina Leader.
Cr Conkey started the Riverina Leader, which is now a Fairfax publication, as an independent newspaper in 1979 and managed it for more about 25 years.
He started the Leader Food Appeal, which still runs in December each year to help the city’s homeless or less fortunate before Christmas.
Former Advertiser editor Michael McCormack has been the Member for Riverina since 2010 and Deputy Prime Minister since early this year.
Among some of Mr McCormack’s more memorable articles during his time as editor is an editorial he wrote in 1993 expressing a strong view against homosexuality.
The column has followed him through his career but despite the public declaration 25 years ago, he voted in favour of the same-sex marriage plebiscite in 2017, which won him much favour.
Grahame Morris, a former Advertiser journalist, has a 30-year association with the Liberal and National parties and was at one time the Chief of Staff for former Prime Minister John Howard.
But it is not just those who are handy with words that have succeeded post-Advertiser.
Sydney-born photographer Tom Lennon came to Advertiser in late 1955 and spent about 20 years (until the early 1970s) as the paper’s only photographer for a time and eventually chief photographer.
He expertly juggled his camera equipment while on news jobs and captured many developments and times of change during that period.
His collection of 80,000 negatives and 50,000 prints has been digitised by CSU Regional Archives and is on display as a record of the region during that time.
The words they wrote or the photos they took when at these publications shaped how the city viewed and read its news. The reputations and careers they forged after they left were part of the legacy they left behind.