Bobby continues family tradition at Silkstone
WHEN the school year begins next week the Lawrie family will chalk up a remarkable milestone.
A more than 100-year association with Silkstone State School will continue when Bobby Lawrie starts prep.
He will follow in the footsteps of five generations of the Lawrie family.
The family's first generation at the school was Bobby's great great grandmother, Sarah Richards, who was a pupil at the then Newtown School in the late 1890s. She went on to become a teacher at the school.
She enrolled her son Bob Lawrie in the renamed Silkstone State School in 1925. Young Bobby is named after his great grandfather Bob, who played international football for Australia before and after the Second World War.
He followed in his mother's footsteps as a teacher there.
Grandfather Glen Lawrie started at Silkstone in the early 1950s.
Glen recalled his father coaching the local boys soccer team on the school oval, which was named the Bob Lawrie Oval in his honour.
It is the same oval Bobby will play on during lunch times.
Glen Lawrie said the school was almost the same when his son Scott started in 1981, but shortly afterwards a fire destroyed some of the school's oldest buildings.
"Probably when I was going to school there it was the third-largest school in Queensland and it always has had the swimming pool," he said.
Scott said there was only one option when it came to choosing a school for his son to attend.
"I'm a bit apprehensive. It's exciting but it is also a bit sad losing him," he said.
