COMMUNITY PAYS TRIBUTE TO TREG
Well-known business identity will be missed
TOOWOOMBA lost one of its longest serving business and community members with the death of Treg Rowe on Saturday.
Mr Rowe was 88 years of age.
Tributes have flowed for the man considered a stalwart of the Toowoomba business community from civic and business leaders.
He was the third generation of the Rowe family to run the popular Rowes Furniture Store in Russell St, the business having been started by his grandfather Josiah Rowe in 1892 and followed by Treg Rowe’s father Arthur Rowe.
Treg Rowe joined the firm as a 17-year-old and was appointed store manager at the age of 20.
In 1951, upon his father’s death, Mr Rowe became the business’s managing director, a position he was to hold for much of the rest of his life.
However, his business and community involvement didn’t rest with the furniture store and he was to eventually buy the Downs Star newspaper which in 1970 merged with The Chronicle, providing Mr Rowe a half share in Toowoomba Newspapers.
Very much a hands-on businessman, staff of The Chronicle can well recall the times when working on one or other aspect of producing the daily news one would turn around to find Mr Rowe standing quietly behind them, so interested he was in how the newspaper was put together and delivered each day.
Mr Rowe eventually sold his share of Toowoomba Newspapers to Australian Provincial Newspapers (APN), which has since sold to News Limited.
Mr Rowe also had a long and close association with St Andrew’s Hospital, of which he was founding chairman of the Board of Governors and chaired the hospital’s fundraising board for 46 years.
His son John Rowe, who today holds the position of Chairman of the Board of Governors at St Andrews Hospital, said the hospital was his father’s life and legacy.
“St Andrew’s was Dad’s life’s work,” Mr Rowe said.
“He was enormously supportive of the hospital.
“It (St Andrew’s) celebrated 50 years last year and it’s an extraordinary legacy of Dad’s.”
Mr Rowe said his father was very moved by the community support he received when Rowes Furniture Store was devastated in the 2011 floods.
“The public rallied and helped clean up the store,” he said. “That had a great impact on Dad.
“His life’s work was to aid the community mainly through St Andrew’s and on that occasion the community aided him. Without the help of the community the store couldn’t have re-opened.”
Treg Rowe is survived by his wife Auriel, son John and daughter Julie, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
The Rowe family has asked that in lieu of flowers Mr Rowe would have preferred people make a donation to St Andrew’s Hospital.
Funeral arrangements will be announced in the coming days.