PUMPED AT HIS BIG WIN
HE’S a little big for the bikes but that doesn’t mean they won’t be enjoyed.
Oakey’s John Campbell was the lucky name pulled from more than 5000 entries in the Rural Weekly gate prize at last week’s Heritage Bank Ag Show.
And had it not been for some gentle encouragement of a mate he probably wouldn’t have entered.
“I never win anything,” John said with a laugh.
“The last thing I won was a clock in a raffle, but this beats it by a mile.
“I grabbed the program book when I first walked in the gates and I wasn’t going to enter but then I was talking to Dave from the Rural Weekly and he said I should put my details on the form and enter.”
The quad and motorbike are undoubtedly smaller than those John would have used when he worked the land as a farmer all his life until 1993 when he sold 600 acres to the Defence Department and moved into his town block at Oakey.
He then took up a posting at the Oakey Abattoir where he worked until he entered retirement two years ago.
The two bikes will go to his grandkids to be ridden around his acre block in Oakey, and the rest of the prize pack – which included a generator, pressure cleaner and fire fighter petrol pump – will be divided between John and his family.
But he has his eye firmly on the water pump.
“I pump water about 200m using a little fire fighter,” he said.
“I’ve had it for 10 years and it has had a flood go through it so now I have a replacement.”